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School Subjects
Religious Education
The approach to religion is from within the Catholic tradition.
St. Peter’s aims to help the children to become more aware of their experience of living in the world, and to help them to respond to God’s love. We help them to respond to God in prayer.
Religion is implicit in the whole life of the school and this has contributed to a close bonding of children, all the staff and governors, together with the highly valued Parent, Teacher and Friends’ Association (PTFA).There is daily prayer and worship in school, in the classroom and at assembly. Mass is celebrated regularly each term and Catholic children are prepared for receiving the sacraments. This is part and parcel of what parents choose for their children in accepting a place; a living and learning community rooted in Gospel values. Parents have the right in law to withdraw their children from Religious Education and worship. None currently exercise this right and consequently no alternative arrangements for their children's supervision are necessary.
The School teaches the Gospel Value of Love.
St. Peter’s uses the Archdiocese of Birmingham Strategy for Religious Education. This is based on a home/school/parish model.
The strategy provides the core of the spiritual and doctrinal teaching of the Church. The content and teaching methods take into consideration the children’s age and capacity to learn without distorting the Christian message, stressing throughout the central truths of the Catholic Faith. The children must be led by committed teachers to an awareness and appreciation of God and a desire and ability to know, love and serve Him and give Him thanks for His many gifts. Part of the teacher’s job is to plant seeds; children must be given the opportunity to grow in faith.
Through creation and the relationships which the children have, a sense of awe and wonder is developed, together with the realisation of God’s love and care for them.
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English Key Stage 1 and 2
English covers:-
- Speaking and listening
- Reading
- Writing and handwriting
The school follows the National Literacy Strategy and the Literacy Hour takes place in each class every day. We adhere closely to the Literacy objectives detailed for each year group and teach according to these requirements.
The teaching of English is a fundamental part of the development of growth and learning within the school. The Literacy skills which are established in the Reception year are nurtured and extended in subsequent years. They are the base upon which learning in the curriculum is developed.
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Speaking and Listening
The children are encouraged to take part, as speakers and listeners, in group activities including imaginative play, and later in a given task. They learn to listen attentively, to respond to stories and poems and then to talk about what they have heard.
The children learn to respond appropriately to simple instructions from the teacher, then to a range of more complex instructions, and to give simple instructions themselves. Later the children learn to describe an event, real or imagined, to the teacher or another pupil.
They talk with the teacher, listen, ask and answer questions. The children are given opportunities to talk freely but with a specific purpose in mind. The development of listening skills is part of daily classroom practice.
St. Peter’s has an integrated multi-media approach to language development, which makes full use of books, cassettes, radio, TV, computer software and word processing.
Opportunities are given for children to create and perform both improvised and scripted drama, for a variety of audiences.
Talking with others and listening to others about:-
- their own experiences and needs
- their interests, ideas and feelings
- relationships between people, objects and events
Our work includes having fun with language:-
- rhyming and singing
- imitating and making up sounds
- making up stories and poems
- listening to stories and poems
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Reading
Children are encouraged to develop as enthusiastic, independent and reflective readers. The school combines structured schemes with ‘real’ books. We use the Ginn 360 reading scheme for children reading individually. This is supplemented by All Aboard, Oxford Reading Tree, Super Sonic Phonics and Fuzz Buzz schemes. Children work in ability groups within the Guided Reading section of the Literacy Hour and read both fiction and non-fiction books. They are taught to use a full range of reading cues: phonic, graphic, syntactic, contextual, to understand and evaluate the text they are reading.
As part of their reading programme the children are encouraged to take books home. Parents can help their children by:-
- enjoying listening to them reading
- reading to them
- sharing books
St. Peter’s has a wide choice of appropriate children’s books in the classrooms and a very well stocked library, available to all the children.
Our work includes making sense of print by behaving like a reader:-
- observing print in the environment
- sharing books and stories
- telling and re-telling stories
- having stories and poems read
- having own language recorded
- re-reading own writing
- awareness of the features of print, e.g. letters, words in familiar contexts
- making marks and symbols to communicate meaning
- making up stories and poems
- writing letters to others in play
- making lists, recording messages in play
During Key Stage 1, phonics, spelling, basic punctuation and handwriting are taught. These support the process of writing. In Key Stage 2 these skills are developed, together with a progressive emphasis on planning, drafting, revising, proof-reading and the presentation of writing.
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Writing
 We aim to stimulate creative and imaginative writing, encouraging children to write independently from an early age. Opportunities are provided for children to write in a range of genres in fiction, non-fiction, poetry; and to understand the use of setting, character and plot in narrative. The very young children begin by drawing a picture and discussing their work with the teacher (putting their picture into words). When they can describe, but cannot yet write, they are encouraged to make a mark on the paper, or a teacher may ‘scribe’ for them. This emergent writing is important to the child in that it makes sense to the individual, and has meaning, although it may only be isolated letters; it communicates. The expertise lies in the careful balance and integration of this approach with more structured and formal teaching. Initiating writing does involve some degree of formality.
Writing is introduced by encouraging children, where possible, to write about their personal experiences and discoveries using a variety of modes. The aim is to lead in time to a fluent, legible, confident and individual style of writing.
Our work includes using writing to convey meaning in a wide variety of contexts by behaving like a writer:-
- making marks and symbols to communicate meaning
- making up stories and poems
- writing letters to others in play
- making lists, recording messages in play
During Key Stage 1, phonics, spelling, basic punctuation and handwriting are taught. These support the process of writing. In Key Stage 2 these skills are developed, together with a progressive emphasis on planning, drafting, revising, proof-reading and the presentation of writing.
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Mathematics - Key Stage 1 and 2
Mathematics covers:-
- Using and applying mathematics
- Number and Algebra (Algebra - Key Stage 2)
- Shape, space and measures
- Handling data (Key Stage 2)
We aim to give children mathematical experiences of:-
- Investigating and describing how things are the same and how they are different
- Discovering patterns and relationships
- Developing number concepts
- Developing concepts of time
The schemes in use are Heinemann Primary Maths and Cambridge Maths supplemented by a range of other resources. The schemes are practically based and give good grounding for modern mathematics.
St. Peter’s teaching of maths follows the guidelines in the National Numeracy Strategy where children have a daily maths lesson. It is also cross-curricular, teaching maths as it arises naturally in topic. The integrated cross-curricular approach is ongoing, aiming to ensure continuity and progression on an individual basis.
The National Numeracy Strategy is fully implemented.
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Science
Science covers:-
- Experimental and Investigative Science
- Life processes and living things
- Materials and their properties
- Physical processes
We aim to give children scientific experiences of:-
- Exploring actively, observing, describing and representing themselves and others
- Experiments
- Investigation
- Working with material
- Discovering
Children have a natural and strong sense of curiosity about themselves and the world around them. The question ‘why’ seems to be always on their lips. They are able to make observations of natural materials and phenomena and to take part in investigations to discover underlying scientific principles. Through this they learn to develop scientific skills and concepts.
Making predictions and setting up fair tests are an essential part of scientific discovery. Children make scientific discoveries through investigation and first hand experience, recording their findings accurately.
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Nature Area
The school has created a substantial Nature Area in part of the playground. This is a major educational benefit and in addition to helping scientific investigation, has relevant aspects for all subjects in the curriculum for the whole school.
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Information & Communication Technology
 Information & Communication Technology (ICT) covers:-
- Communicating and Handling Information
- Controlling and Modelling
St. Peter’s is committed to preparing its children for their technological futures. ICT comprises of a variety of systems that handle electronically retrievable information. Computers are the most obvious of these but ICT also includes programmable robots, tape recorders, calculators and video/digital cameras.
ICT creates opportunities to handle:-
- text and images
- numbers and graphs
- instructions
- sound and music
and to process information by:-
- organising and reorganising
- storing and retrieving
- sorting and analysing
- presenting and communicating
Our aims in using Information and Communication Technology are that all children at St. Peter’s School will:
- be provided with their National Curriculum entitlement
- enjoy using ICT and tackle all applications with confidence and a sense of achievement
- experience both collaborative and independent learning
- be given opportunities to become familiar with a range of information technologies
- develop practical skills in the use of ICT and the ability to apply these skills to the solving of relevant and worthwhile problems
- understand the capabilities and limitations of ICT and the implications and consequences of its use
- be given the advantage of the opportunities ICT provides to support learning in other areas of the curriculum.
- enable children to experience e-learning and digitial content.
At St. Peter’s In 2004 a new ICT suite was opened providing 16 workstations and an interactive whiteboard to enable all children to fulfil the above aims. The school has also entered into the National Grid for Learning, a Government initiative. Computers are networked and will provide the children with appropriate access to the wonderful resource of the Internet and communication with other schools. In 2005 St Peter's joins the Warwickshire PFI project.
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Design & Technology
Design and Technology covers:-
- Designing
- Making
- Evaluating
- Knowledge and Understanding
We are surrounded in our every day life by technology in all forms, which enables us to function in a rapidly progressive and changing environment. In school we aim to bring an experience of this technological skill to the children, by making them more aware of how products are made and function.
We are able to do this in Design & Technology by using children’s ideas for identifying the need for products, developing designing skills by considering how things function, applying observations to making and developing skills in using tools and equipment safely.
Development and progress can be seen when children evaluate their work and suggest improvements.
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History
History covers:-
- Chronology
- Knowledge and understanding
- Interpretations
- Historical enquiry
- Organisation and communication
At both Key Stage 1 and 2 the study of History is very much based on observation, questioning, application of existing knowledge, suggesting reasons for, and sequencing, rather than just teaching facts and dates. The teacher’s role is to encourage the pupils to discover and reason as much as possible for themselves. This will include practical input from the children with research. It may encompass relating to the children’s own experience of families, personal history and community links. This approach has already been tried and tested in other areas of the curriculum, but has only recently been applied to History. It makes History a much more exciting prospect than the rather dry subject which many people remember from school days.
The aim is to make History a living subject.
The pupils’ own locality is used from the earliest opportunity. St. Peter’s is fortunate not only to have a long history of its own, which has been documented in a History of the School as part of the 125 years celebrations, but also to be situated in the centre of an interesting historic town. This means that the children are surrounded, quite literally, by the past. St. Peter’s Church, the Pump Room Gardens.
All Saints’ Parish Church and Leamington Library, Museum and Art Gallery are all within walking distance and are used whenever possible. In addition, the immediate locality provides enough historical background to study many periods of British History. This rich heritage is very much appreciated and is not taken for granted just because it is on the doorstep.
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Geography
Geography covers:-
- Geographical skills
- Places
- Thematic studies
Geography teaching, like History teaching, is also linked into topic work, relating closely to the children’s own environment. This is achieved, for example, by use of the school nature area, daily journeys to school, weekly journeys to swimming baths, family holidays and school residential visits to Marle Hall, Warwickshire Outdoor Educational Centre, and Alton Castle, Diocesan Retreat Centre. An awareness of local and world environment is encouraged by support of community projects at home and abroad.
Liaison with other schools gives comparisons of town and country life as well as other countries.
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Music
Music covers:-
- Performing and composing
- Listening and appraising
The development of the ability to perform and compose music with understanding is fundamental. It involves the progression from performing simple rhythmic and melodic patterns by ear and from straightforward symbols, to being able to interpret more complex symbols and follow simple musical instructions.
In music, the children develop the ability to listen to and appraise music, including knowledge of musical history, our diverse musical heritage, and a variety of other musical traditions. They progress from being able to talk in simple but appropriate terms about sounds and music which they have made, listened to, performed or composed, to being able to describe, discuss and undertake simple analysis and evaluation of musical compositions and performances.
Music is a very important part of school life, involving a range of instruments. A wide musical interest is encouraged throughout the school. The children are taught to read music, to sing and all benefit from rhythm and percussion work.
A great emphasis is placed on learning religious music for celebrations such as school assemblies, Masses and sacramental services which are enhanced and made more enjoyable, using the most natural instrument that we all possess - the singing voice.
St. Peter’s is most fortunate to have specialist music tuition.
All the children from Year 1 to Year 6 learn to play the Recorder. The older children have the opportunity to study an instrument from a choice of:- Clarinet · Violin · Flute · Guitar
All the children take part enthusiastically in the school productions; this is a valuable medium for self expression.
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Art & Design
 Art & Design covers:-
- Investigating and making
- Knowledge and understanding
We aim to give children the opportunity, which is fundamental to education, to represent their knowledge and developing understanding of the world.
Children need to communicate their emotions, ideas and fantasies through non-verbal as well as verbal means. They need the opportunity to act and react to their experiences.
Children need opportunities to use materials with which to develop their own creativity and imagination. They also need time to reflect, and to appreciate their own creations and those of others.
St. Peter’s aims to encourage free style and expression through, for example, painting, drawing, model making, collage work, printing, use of ICT and observational skills. All children’s work is highly valued and widely exhibited in the school.
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Physical Education
 Physical education includes:-
- Athletics (Key Stage 2)
- Dance
- Games
- Gymnastics
- Outdoor and adventure activities (Key Stage 2)
- Swimming (Key Stage 2)
St. Peter’s aims to provide opportunities for the children to use their whole body, developing awareness of body parts and space. This is achieved by ensuring that the curriculum follows statutory requirements during school time and by offering opportunities to participate in competitive sport after school. The extra curricular activities are open to the older Key Stage 2 children. The children learn to explore the environment and enjoy vigorous indoor and outdoor adventure play, utilising the countryside for brisk walks, cross-country running or simple orienteering activities. Games we play include football, netball, cricket, rounders, hockey and tennis. They develop co-ordination, control and imaginative expression. The children learn to take care of their own body needs. They explore with all their senses and learn how to use tools and equipment.
St. Peter’s offers a balanced physical education. The school has modern apparatus and a large hall for gymnastics, music and movement and dancing. The school has a substantial playground area extensively set out for developing small games skills. It benefits from the addition of outdoor play equipment. Our rules are-:
- Make sure your clothing is safe before playing.
- Always wear sensible shoes and tie your shoe laces.
- Be aware of others and treat everyone with kindness and consideration.
- No fighting and no pushing.
- Take extra care when jumping off equipment.
- Only do what you know you are able to do on the equipment.
- No running.
- If you are not on the equipment do not play on the safety surface.
- Do not play on equipment when it is wet.
- Only play on the equipment when there is a responsible adult watching you.
Public playing fields and external specialist facilities provide extra locations, in particular Edmondscote Sports Track for athletics and the Astro Turf at St. Nicholas Park, Warwick, where other sports specialists, including parents, help and advise.
All the children attend Leamington swimming baths once a week. At the same time the children have an opportunity to use the green field facilities at Newbold Comyn.
Many of the children also play at the weekend in various organised events and team games. All the staff at St. Peter’s school are committed to supporting the school’s sporting aims. Teachers give of their time willingly to support this important aspect of school life. |
