CURRICULUM MAPS

OUR CURRICULUM AT OLC

OUR ETHOS

At Our Lady of Compassion School, in line with our Catholic ethos, we believe that everyone has a special part to play in God’s plan. As a fully inclusive school, we welcome all children with their individual strengths and needs and strive to give them the best opportunities to be able to participate in school life, progress and achieve their full potential. We believe that all children are entitled to a rich and diverse curriculum that is delivered through high quality adaptive teaching to meet the needs of all children; our approaches support the children in developing their collaborative and independent skills, as well as empathy and the need to recognise the achievements of others.

OUR CURRICULUM INTENT

“An education in the fullness of humanity should be the defining feature of Catholic schools.”

Pope Francis

At Our Lady of Compassion School, we are committed to providing our children with a curriculum and a learning experience which stimulates and inspires them, whilst preparing them for life outside school. We aim to develop children as true lifelong learners, hungry for knowledge and understanding, proficient at transferring learning skills into a wide range of areas and proud of their achievements; learners who are confident, independent and resourceful, who have high aspirations and feel that they are able to make positive contributions to their community and the wider society.

In line with our Catholic ethos, we have identified the CAFOD principles for Catholic Social Teaching as the drivers that underpin our curriculum, as follows:

• Human Dignity – We believe everyone is special; we are beautifully made in the image and likeness of God.
• Common Good – We believe in thinking of everyone; we are called to work for the good of each and of all.
• Participation – We believe in taking part – people have a right and a duty to take part in shaping a more just and human society.
• Subsidiarity – We believe everyone should have a say; we are called to empower communities, to let everyone have a say.
• Stewardship of Creation – We believe in caring for God’s gifts; we are guardians of God’s creation, living sustainably and enhancing the wellbeing of our planet.
• Solidarity – We believe in showing we care; God created us as one global family called to support our brothers and sisters.
• Option for the Poor – We believe in putting people in most need first; to choose to consider the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable people first.
• Distributive Justice – We believe in fair allocation of resources; everyone should have access to their fair share of resources.
• Being Peacemakers – We believe that peace comes from justice and love; we can be God’s instruments of peace through seeking justice.

Our curriculum builds progressively and sequentially across our four phases – Foundation Stage (FS1 and FS2), Key Stage 1 (Year 1 and Year 2), Lower Key Stage 2 (Year 3 and Year 4) and Upper Key Stage 2 (Year 5 and Year 6) – giving children the opportunity to revisit and extend their learning, allowing them to embed knowledge to their long-term memory. 

OUR CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION AND IMPACT

As a school with mixed-age classes, our curriculum works on a two-year cycle for the vast majority of the subject areas. Below are our curriculum maps for Cycle A and Cycle B, as well as our curriculum map for the subject areas that are taught discretely; currently (2022-2023), we are working on our Cycle B curriculum. We regularly review our curriculum to ensure that it is consistently relevant and constantly meets the needs of our children.