St Helen's CE Primary School

Our curriculum is closely designed around our school’s vision and has been developed to support the needs of our community and the child as a whole.

Our curriculum is driven by the need to prepare our children for lifelong learning.  At St Helen’s, we offer a rich and vibrant curriculum which is ambitious for all learners. Through our curriculum, we develop the essential knowledge, skills and understanding, which are the building blocks for later life. Our curriculum encompasses not only the formal requirements of the National Curriculum, but goes beyond the experiences of the classroom to ensure that our children are exposed to the richest and most varied opportunities that we can provide. Our aim is to enrich every child's school experience by creating an environment where they are encouraged to succeed and be the best they can be. At St Helen’s, cultural capital prepares children with the essential knowledge and skills for their future. The exploration of new skills and experiences help to nurture resilience, curiosity and creativity.

Curriculum maps are produced for each year group ensuring clarity of coverage with a strong emphasis on progression of knowledge and skills. Each learning 'theme' has been carefully thought out in order to give children opportunities to enquire about different aspects of our world and to ensure the children make connections across a variety of subjects. Carefully selected enrichment opportunities (for instance visits to different places of worship) are key to providing all pupils rich experiences to enhance their learning. It's design is broad and balanced and progressively builds on skills, knowledge and conceptual understanding year on year. 

Our curriculum is fully inclusive and enables all children, including those with disabilities and SEN, to access the learning and achieve.

Planning and Delivery

When planning each term, a journey is mapped out to ensure full coverage of the curriculum and skills. Children will be provided with a knowledge organiser for specific subjects to enable them to access the key vocabulary, important dates and any other key information they might need. Most subjects are taught discretely.  Whilst cross-curricular links are made where appropriate, the school has chosen to teach subjects separately so that children gain an understanding from an early age of what constitutes each subject and so that knowledge and skills can be revisited and built upon.

As well as ensuring our children study a rich and broad curriculum, we strive to provide as many opportunities as possible. A few highlights from 2022/23 include ( please note we change these regularly): visiting the national space museum; watching the Lion King; Shakespeare workshops; circus skills; visiting the national RAF museum; residential trips to manor and Gilwell (year 6 +5); visting the local firestation; visiting the local Hindu temple; visiting the catedral; Diwali workshop; whole school panto; Olympic athlete visit, authors visit; hedgehog sanctuary; science museum; mini beast workshop; Gurdwara trip; Egyptian day; Kimbilio;Whipsnade zoo visit and many more.

For more information about the curriculum, please contact the curriculum lead Alastair Denton: alastair.denton@sthelens.herts.sch.uk.