St Vincent's Catholic Primary School

“Caritas Christi Urget Nos –

The love of Christ urges us to care for each other and strive for excellence in everything we do.”

Utopia – Erasmus+ KA2 Project findings.

Developing skills for cross-curricular teaching in a community-based and outdoor environment.

St Vincent’s participation in a KA201 Erasmus+ Utopia project has come to an end after two years!

The main objective of this project was the professional development of primary school teachers. We wanted to support and develop high-quality and innovative teaching methods, upgrade existing skills and embrace the challenges of the future. We aimed to achieve change through self- and whole school improvement and exchanging of good practices. 

In a partnership of seven primary schools from Belgium, London, Wales, Slovenia, Spain, Greece and Bulgaria, complemented by specialists from the university of applied science Thomas More University, Belgium and specialists from the Department for Education and Children of Wales, we organised learning and training activities, both physically in training events and project meetings including online, to facilitate the exchange of good practices to enhance the motivation, knowledge and skills of teachers, to make teaching more effective and to foster a culture of lifelong learning in the schools.

The overall project aims were to further deepen our pupils’ learning, knowledge, skills and understanding holistically in authentic and imaginative outdoor contexts, nurture their wellbeing through connectedness with their environment and continue to extend their cultural capital to prepare them for their futures as enquiring, resilient and productive global citizens.

Through the Utopia Project, St Vincent’s school have taken part in international visits both in person and online meetings. We have had the opportunity to exchange ideas with our European partners and training provided with a focus on Cross Curricular and outdoor learning, with staff members going on visits to Belgium, Athens and most recently to Wales. It was an amazing opportunity to learn from and with our EU partners. Thank you one and all!

As part of Professional development across EU education systems, each partner school created examples of Good Practices linked to their curriculum that were shared between EU countries. To see the variety of classroom activity resources available across a range of age groups please visit the Utopia website: https://www.windekind-utopia.be/

For the latest news or more useful information on international projects or opportunities and what local schools are doing, please visit https://www.connectgloballearning.co.uk/. Make sure you read the fantastic updates in the Newsletters section!

As part of it’s final report – here is a magazine created by Utopia partners to celebrate all the highlights and achievements of this Erasmus+ KA2 project. Enjoy reading!

Latest School Posts

Curriculum Intent

At St Vincent’s it is our INTENT is to enable ALL children to thrive through the opportunities we provide them with, in order to:

Curriculum Context

St Vincent’s is a 1.5 form entry school with 285 children ranging from 4 -11. Children come predominantly from the parishes of Sacred Heart in Mill Hill and St Anthony’s in Edgware.

Children come from a diverse range of socio-economic backgrounds, speak 17 different languages and hail from 26 different ethnic groups. The curriculum we present, and promote, to the children is an endeavour to reflect these differences by providing opportunities to explore the different countries, languages and customs our children are part of through the projects they investigate. We have looked closely at the context of our school, the backgrounds of the children and how life is for a child growing up in North London today. We have used the underlying principles of our Catholic Faith and the example of our namesake St Vincent to create a set of values which lie at the heart of our curriculum.

We are aware of the changing nature of society and the pressures faced by young children as they enter the next stage of their education. The rise in Mental Health related issues has been widely documented across the media. Therefore, issues such as internet safety and the enormous impact across society of social media are at the forefront of our minds when planning our curriculum. With the current worldwide concerns relating to Covid 19, racial justice, equality and diversity, as well as gender and economic background, we feel it is our duty to prepare the children through a concerted focus on building independence, resilience and communication skills linked to our Vincentian Values.