‘Journeying Together, We Shine.’

In this section, you will find information about our school’s curriculum, including: 

• the content of the curriculum we follow in each academic year for every subject
• the names of the phonics and reading schemes we are using in KS1
• how parents or other members of the public can find out more about the curriculum we follow

Curriculum Intent

At Thornham St James, through our core values which are embodied in Matthew 5: 13-18, we foster a vibrant and safe learning environment where every child is valued for their individual talents and supported to reach their full potential.  We believe that primary school should be a happy, investigative, and enquiring time in our children’s lives where there are no limits to curiosity and there is a thirst for new experiences and knowledge. We promote positive attitudes to learning where challenges and mistakes are part of the process in order that children build resilience and confidence in learning to ensure future success.  We instil high aspirations in our pupils, empowering them to excel academically, spiritually, and personally.

Our curriculum is who we are, it is what makes our school special and it is our vehicle for maximising the potential of every single child that steps foot through our doors. As a church school, we thread Christian values through the intricate web of our curriculum to ensure a moral and principled focus for our pupils. Our values of community, creativity, thankfulness, service, compassion and wisdom are deeply embedded into the fabric of our school, we use them as the anchor for all curriculum developments.

Thornham St James’ curriculum for excellence is primarily focused upon ensuring that pupils are supported and challenged to gain knowledge, skills and attributes to ensure that they are ready for their next stage of education. Ultimately, we recognise that we preparing our pupils for lifelong learning and effective contribution to the diverse society in which we live.

Pupils will leave Thornham St James: -

• Secure in the substantive (factual content - knowing what) and disciplinary (the action taken within a particular subject – knowing how) knowledge set out in our curriculum plans.
• With the knowledge to be socially, morally, spiritually and culturally respectful and responsible;
• Ready to make positive contributions to the community in which they live and in the wider world;
• How to endeavour to be the best that they can be.

All children to leave our school with ambition for life’s opportunities.

Driver 1: Children are safe and ready to learn

At the end of their journey at Thornham St James, children will have gained knowledge, skills and an enthusiasm and love for learning.

We measure attainment carefully using a range of materials, whilst always considering Age Related Expectations. Our intention is that children will be academically, physically and emotionally prepared for life in secondary school, modern Britain and the world.

Driver 2: Children are respectful

Our children will develop fully rounded characters with a clear understanding of complex matters such as: equality, friendship, trust and diversity. We measure this not just by the work our children produce, but in the behaviours we see each and every day in classrooms, on the playground, in extra-curricular clubs and in the roles of responsibility we give them. The impact of this intention will be seen in the daily interaction of all members of our community, including staff and children.

Driver 3: Children are reflective

Our children will develop a reflective mind-set that sees mistakes, in any context, as opportunities for growth. They will: embrace challenges; persist in the face of setbacks; see effort as the path to mastery; learn from criticism and find inspiration in the success of others. Our children will learn to approach new challenges by reflecting on experiences and learning opportunities they have had previously; they will use prior experiences to inform and be successful in new ones.

Driver 4: Aspirational

Children who have been educated at  Thornham St James will be highly motivated to succeed and achieve and will be equipped with all the personal skills to do this. The children will be knowledgeable about the wider world and the opportunities available to them; they will go out into the world and make a difference in their own life and to others. The children will be empowered to be the owners of their own destinies.

Curriculum Implementation

Curriculum implementation at Thornham St James is successful because of strong subject leadership and subject knowledge, high-quality first teaching, timely and effective intervention and purposeful formative and summative assessment practices - used to meet the needs of all pupils. 

We implement our values through our four main curriculum drivers which underpin the implementation of our curriculum and are inextricably interweaved with our Christian vision and values.

We provide a unique curriculum, underpinned by our drivers, based on three sound principles of learning:

1. The National Curriculum (content: knowledge and skills be gained at each stage)

At Thornham St James, we teach a curriculum through a subject specific approach to learning, making links across subjects where they naturally occur. Research always underpins the curriculum planning stage to ensure that this informs curriculum provision.  We have developed year group specific long-term curriculum maps, which identify when the different subjects will be taught across the academic year. The vast majority of subjects are taught discretely but staff make meaningful links across subjects to deepen children’s learning. In developing our school curriculum, we acknowledged the uniqueness of our school within the context of its monoculture demographic and our celebrated religious status. This has framed the choices of the curriculum content we have made particularly in aspects of the curriculum such as geography and history and in consideration to the famous people we celebrate across all subject areas. The culturally wider the knowledge base is the more likely one is to be empathetic to others. Our curriculum has been carefully built and the learning opportunities and assessment end points for each year group crafted to ensure progression and repetition in terms of embedding key learning, knowledge and skills. The curriculum is spiral in nature, with learning cycles coming back to deepen and consolidate the key substantive and disciplinary knowledge and skills

2. Rosenshine’s Principles (approach/pedagogy)

Based on Roshensine’s Principles, the teaching of each small step of learning follows the same structure, reducing cognitive load for children and ensuring that research derived from cognitive science and effective teaching practices are embedded. The implementation of this small-step teaching process is not a lesson-by-lesson checklist. Teachers ensure there is a diet of different activities in each lesson; the form each phase takes varies significantly from subject to subject and this variety is celebrated. The application of these principles ensures the consistency of the teaching and learning experiences for all our pupils across all key stages. It also allows for a shared language base and provides a means for school staff to carry out common discourse when evaluating learning.

Flashback: Review of learning previously secured to ensure it is retained and retrieval in long-term memory.

Feedback: Utilising assessment for learning from previous lesson, this section helps bridge the gap between what is taught and what is learned. Immediate and child specific feedback is also provided during the next phases of the lesson.

Anchor: This is quick recap of key points from the last lesson, delivered as a brief discussion or task, or a mini-quiz covering prior material. This not only warms up the pupils' brains for the lesson ahead but also ensures that the new content introduced is effectively scaffolded upon already established knowledge, enhancing the learning process.

Modelled Practise: New learning is introduced in a small step as per curriculum plans. The teacher provides clear examples that can help pupils learn more effectively, especially when new skills or concepts are introduced. This may be a physical representation of a completed task, conceptual model, explicit narration of teacher thought process or silent modelling. In this stage of the lesson, teachers will use pre-assessments to explicitly challenge misconception.

Guided Practice: This is the coaching phase of the lesson, where teachers provide ‘stabilisers for the completion of tasks involving new learning. This stage supports children to organise their thinking and prepare them confidently for independent practice. In this part of the lesson, children’s success rates will be high, fuelling motivation and engagement as they move to the independent phase. The teacher will be a partner in the children’s learning, circulating the room, re-modelling as required, providing immediate feedback and utilising a range of methods of questioning to check for understanding.

Independent Practice: The ultimate goal is to consult a learning sequence that enables children to be ready to do challenging things by themselves without help. Tasks completed in this section will be similar in  nature to those in the modelled and guided phases and may be completed outside of the lesson as homework.

3. End Points of Learning (assessment for learning)

End points are the most important knowledge that we want children to know, remember and apply. Knowledge can be substantive (factual content - knowing what) or disciplinary (the action taken within a particular subject to gain knowing - knowing how to). At Thornham St James, we have used End Points to support long-term, medium-term and short-term planning, and assessment. At the long-term planning stage, our end points ensure that the most important elements that underpin the curriculum are covered at the right time, and to ensure that there is continuity and consistency for pupils as they progress from one year group to the next.

At the medium-term planning stage, subject co-ordinators with class teachers have used end points to inform decisions on how much teaching time to set aside for the different parts of the curriculum and in the construction of ‘Flashback’ activites. At the short-term planning stage, the end points are used to inform teachers decision making around designing learning activities that enable pupils to build knowledge securely.

Our curriculum non negotiables are:

• High-quality texts are the foundation of everything we do, we develop a genuine love of reading so that our children read widely and often for information and pleasure.
• Systematically teach and expose our children to vocabulary to foster a love of language in order to develop word consciousness across all curriculum areas.
• Build cultural capital by using the vibrancy of Oldham and Manchester so that our children learn from and respect other cultures and appreciate what they have.
• Enrich pupils time in school with memorable and unforgettable experiences, ensuring equity for all.
• Provide a safe and inclusive environment so that our children have no limits to what their ambitions are.

Curriculum Impact

Assessment is key to ensuring each child receives the timely challenge and support required for them to achieve. Ever day, in every lesson, teachers gather and utilise formative assessment data. This continuous assessment drives immediate feedback and helps determine whether individuals or groups need to revisit, consolidate, or advance their learning. Staff use this information for short-term planning and interventions, including in foundation subjects, ensuring the best possible support for all pupils.

Pre-assessment quizzes, part of the framework established by our Curriculum Lead, evaluate prior learning and inform short-term planning and interventions. This process ensures that essential knowledge or 'critical content' is retained before moving forward. Each topic concludes with post-assessment quizzes, activities, and extended writing tasks, which are used to make summative evaluations against established assessment benchmarks. Our formative assessments also guide summative judgments for each child across all subjects.

In the core subjects, staff assess each child's attainment as: working towards the standard, meeting the expected standard, and working at greater depth. In the foundation subjects staff use the criteria of working towards the standard and meeting the standard.  Senior and Subject Leaders analyse children’s outcomes, leading to necessary curriculum adjustments and/or interventions.

At the beginning of the academic year, a comprehensive monitoring cycle is established collaboratively with teaching staff to manage workload and ensure transparency. Monitoring includes various methods such as book scrutinies, lesson observations and/or learning walks, and feedback from pupils, parents, and staff.

Pupil progress reviews are conducted half-termly (formative) and termly (summative), providing the SLT, Governors, and Subject Leaders with a thorough and accurate understanding of the school's educational quality.

All this information is reviewed and used to guide further curriculum developments, with provisions adapted as needed.

Feedback, Marking and Reporting

Learning Environment

Presenation of Work and Handwriting

‘Journeying Together, We Shine.’

In this section, you will find information about our school’s curriculum, including: 

• the content of the curriculum we follow in each academic year for every subject
• the names of the phonics and reading schemes we are using in KS1
• how parents or other members of the public can find out more about the curriculum we follow

Curriculum Intent

At Thornham St James, through our core values which are embodied in Matthew 5: 13-18, we foster a vibrant and safe learning environment where every child is valued for their individual talents and supported to reach their full potential.  We believe that primary school should be a happy, investigative, and enquiring time in our children’s lives where there are no limits to curiosity and there is a thirst for new experiences and knowledge. We promote positive attitudes to learning where challenges and mistakes are part of the process in order that children build resilience and confidence in learning to ensure future success.  We instil high aspirations in our pupils, empowering them to excel academically, spiritually, and personally.

Our curriculum is who we are, it is what makes our school special and it is our vehicle for maximising the potential of every single child that steps foot through our doors. As a church school, we thread Christian values through the intricate web of our curriculum to ensure a moral and principled focus for our pupils. Our values of community, creativity, thankfulness, service, compassion and wisdom are deeply embedded into the fabric of our school, we use them as the anchor for all curriculum developments.

Thornham St James’ curriculum for excellence is primarily focused upon ensuring that pupils are supported and challenged to gain knowledge, skills and attributes to ensure that they are ready for their next stage of education. Ultimately, we recognise that we preparing our pupils for lifelong learning and effective contribution to the diverse society in which we live.

Pupils will leave Thornham St James: -

• Secure in the substantive (factual content - knowing what) and disciplinary (the action taken within a particular subject – knowing how) knowledge set out in our curriculum plans.
• With the knowledge to be socially, morally, spiritually and culturally respectful and responsible;
• Ready to make positive contributions to the community in which they live and in the wider world;
• How to endeavour to be the best that they can be.

All children to leave our school with ambition for life’s opportunities.

Driver 1: Children are safe and ready to learn

At the end of their journey at Thornham St James, children will have gained knowledge, skills and an enthusiasm and love for learning.

We measure attainment carefully using a range of materials, whilst always considering Age Related Expectations. Our intention is that children will be academically, physically and emotionally prepared for life in secondary school, modern Britain and the world.

Driver 2: Children are respectful

Our children will develop fully rounded characters with a clear understanding of complex matters such as: equality, friendship, trust and diversity. We measure this not just by the work our children produce, but in the behaviours we see each and every day in classrooms, on the playground, in extra-curricular clubs and in the roles of responsibility we give them. The impact of this intention will be seen in the daily interaction of all members of our community, including staff and children.

Driver 3: Children are reflective

Our children will develop a reflective mind-set that sees mistakes, in any context, as opportunities for growth. They will: embrace challenges; persist in the face of setbacks; see effort as the path to mastery; learn from criticism and find inspiration in the success of others. Our children will learn to approach new challenges by reflecting on experiences and learning opportunities they have had previously; they will use prior experiences to inform and be successful in new ones.

Driver 4: Aspirational

Children who have been educated at  Thornham St James will be highly motivated to succeed and achieve and will be equipped with all the personal skills to do this. The children will be knowledgeable about the wider world and the opportunities available to them; they will go out into the world and make a difference in their own life and to others. The children will be empowered to be the owners of their own destinies.

Curriculum Implementation

Curriculum implementation at Thornham St James is successful because of strong subject leadership and subject knowledge, high-quality first teaching, timely and effective intervention and purposeful formative and summative assessment practices - used to meet the needs of all pupils. 

We implement our values through our four main curriculum drivers which underpin the implementation of our curriculum and are inextricably interweaved with our Christian vision and values.

We provide a unique curriculum, underpinned by our drivers, based on three sound principles of learning:

1. The National Curriculum (content: knowledge and skills be gained at each stage)

At Thornham St James, we teach a curriculum through a subject specific approach to learning, making links across subjects where they naturally occur. Research always underpins the curriculum planning stage to ensure that this informs curriculum provision.  We have developed year group specific long-term curriculum maps, which identify when the different subjects will be taught across the academic year. The vast majority of subjects are taught discretely but staff make meaningful links across subjects to deepen children’s learning. In developing our school curriculum, we acknowledged the uniqueness of our school within the context of its monoculture demographic and our celebrated religious status. This has framed the choices of the curriculum content we have made particularly in aspects of the curriculum such as geography and history and in consideration to the famous people we celebrate across all subject areas. The culturally wider the knowledge base is the more likely one is to be empathetic to others. Our curriculum has been carefully built and the learning opportunities and assessment end points for each year group crafted to ensure progression and repetition in terms of embedding key learning, knowledge and skills. The curriculum is spiral in nature, with learning cycles coming back to deepen and consolidate the key substantive and disciplinary knowledge and skills

2. Rosenshine’s Principles (approach/pedagogy)

Based on Roshensine’s Principles, the teaching of each small step of learning follows the same structure, reducing cognitive load for children and ensuring that research derived from cognitive science and effective teaching practices are embedded. The implementation of this small-step teaching process is not a lesson-by-lesson checklist. Teachers ensure there is a diet of different activities in each lesson; the form each phase takes varies significantly from subject to subject and this variety is celebrated. The application of these principles ensures the consistency of the teaching and learning experiences for all our pupils across all key stages. It also allows for a shared language base and provides a means for school staff to carry out common discourse when evaluating learning.

Flashback: Review of learning previously secured to ensure it is retained and retrieval in long-term memory.

Feedback: Utilising assessment for learning from previous lesson, this section helps bridge the gap between what is taught and what is learned. Immediate and child specific feedback is also provided during the next phases of the lesson.

Anchor: This is quick recap of key points from the last lesson, delivered as a brief discussion or task, or a mini-quiz covering prior material. This not only warms up the pupils' brains for the lesson ahead but also ensures that the new content introduced is effectively scaffolded upon already established knowledge, enhancing the learning process.

Modelled Practise: New learning is introduced in a small step as per curriculum plans. The teacher provides clear examples that can help pupils learn more effectively, especially when new skills or concepts are introduced. This may be a physical representation of a completed task, conceptual model, explicit narration of teacher thought process or silent modelling. In this stage of the lesson, teachers will use pre-assessments to explicitly challenge misconception.

Guided Practice: This is the coaching phase of the lesson, where teachers provide ‘stabilisers for the completion of tasks involving new learning. This stage supports children to organise their thinking and prepare them confidently for independent practice. In this part of the lesson, children’s success rates will be high, fuelling motivation and engagement as they move to the independent phase. The teacher will be a partner in the children’s learning, circulating the room, re-modelling as required, providing immediate feedback and utilising a range of methods of questioning to check for understanding.

Independent Practice: The ultimate goal is to consult a learning sequence that enables children to be ready to do challenging things by themselves without help. Tasks completed in this section will be similar in  nature to those in the modelled and guided phases and may be completed outside of the lesson as homework.

3. End Points of Learning (assessment for learning)

End points are the most important knowledge that we want children to know, remember and apply. Knowledge can be substantive (factual content - knowing what) or disciplinary (the action taken within a particular subject to gain knowing - knowing how to). At Thornham St James, we have used End Points to support long-term, medium-term and short-term planning, and assessment. At the long-term planning stage, our end points ensure that the most important elements that underpin the curriculum are covered at the right time, and to ensure that there is continuity and consistency for pupils as they progress from one year group to the next.

At the medium-term planning stage, subject co-ordinators with class teachers have used end points to inform decisions on how much teaching time to set aside for the different parts of the curriculum and in the construction of ‘Flashback’ activites. At the short-term planning stage, the end points are used to inform teachers decision making around designing learning activities that enable pupils to build knowledge securely.

Our curriculum non negotiables are:

• High-quality texts are the foundation of everything we do, we develop a genuine love of reading so that our children read widely and often for information and pleasure.
• Systematically teach and expose our children to vocabulary to foster a love of language in order to develop word consciousness across all curriculum areas.
• Build cultural capital by using the vibrancy of Oldham and Manchester so that our children learn from and respect other cultures and appreciate what they have.
• Enrich pupils time in school with memorable and unforgettable experiences, ensuring equity for all.
• Provide a safe and inclusive environment so that our children have no limits to what their ambitions are.

Curriculum Impact

Assessment is key to ensuring each child receives the timely challenge and support required for them to achieve. Ever day, in every lesson, teachers gather and utilise formative assessment data. This continuous assessment drives immediate feedback and helps determine whether individuals or groups need to revisit, consolidate, or advance their learning. Staff use this information for short-term planning and interventions, including in foundation subjects, ensuring the best possible support for all pupils.

Pre-assessment quizzes, part of the framework established by our Curriculum Lead, evaluate prior learning and inform short-term planning and interventions. This process ensures that essential knowledge or 'critical content' is retained before moving forward. Each topic concludes with post-assessment quizzes, activities, and extended writing tasks, which are used to make summative evaluations against established assessment benchmarks. Our formative assessments also guide summative judgments for each child across all subjects.

In the core subjects, staff assess each child's attainment as: working towards the standard, meeting the expected standard, and working at greater depth. In the foundation subjects staff use the criteria of working towards the standard and meeting the standard.  Senior and Subject Leaders analyse children’s outcomes, leading to necessary curriculum adjustments and/or interventions.

At the beginning of the academic year, a comprehensive monitoring cycle is established collaboratively with teaching staff to manage workload and ensure transparency. Monitoring includes various methods such as book scrutinies, lesson observations and/or learning walks, and feedback from pupils, parents, and staff.

Pupil progress reviews are conducted half-termly (formative) and termly (summative), providing the SLT, Governors, and Subject Leaders with a thorough and accurate understanding of the school's educational quality.

All this information is reviewed and used to guide further curriculum developments, with provisions adapted as needed.

Feedback, Marking and Reporting

Learning Environment

Presenation of Work and Handwriting