Curriculum Design

The curriculum at Holy Family has been carefully designed for our children. Everything we do is rooted in our Faith. The gospel values permeate all of our topics.

Using the National Curriculum, and a book-based approach to learning, our staff have carefully designed and crafted the topics that our pupils learn to ensure that they are engaging and purposeful.

At Holy Family our learning is sequenced around a broad range of texts.  These high-quality texts are designed to cover a range of topics and engage the children in purposeful learning. These books link creatively to the wider curriculum and contribute to the development of cultural capital. The carefully selected texts are designed to develop a love of reading whilst also enabling children to become secure readers and writers themselves.

Where possible we use our locality: LS Lowry, Manchester Ship Canal, Worsley Woods and we have tried to embrace some of the cultural heritage of the community we serve: the Benin Kingdom. Our topics feature a moral focus supporting the spiritual, moral, social and cultural learning and helps prepare our children to show a social responsibility as they progress through their school career.

Lessons are carefully planned and sequenced, to build on knowledge (using knowledge organisers) and to develop conceptual understanding. At Holy Family we ensure barriers to academic and non-academic achievement are overcome. Teacher subject knowledge is a focus, and knowledge organisers have helped to develop this. Our lessons follow a ‘Do it, Twist it, deepen it’ format to enable pupils to develop a deep understanding. The ‘Twist it’ component of our lessons allows pupils to address misconceptions and think about aspects of learning from different perspectives.

Our children are encouraged to work with a growth mindset at all times and work collaboratively to develop key skills in their learning: team working, reflective learning, effective participating, self-managing, resourceful thinking and independent enquiry.

We ask our children to think about their own learning and limits through metacognition, and using our fictional pupil, Blodwyn. This deepens children’s understanding of their own capacity and helps them learn more and remember more.