St Vincent's Catholic Primary School

“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!”
Psalm 133.1

What do we need to help us grow? LKS2 Autumn

As we come towards the end of this autumn term, it’s important that  we reflect on what the children have learnt. Our wonderful children in LKS2 have been investigating the Vincentian value ‘We believe in practical hands-on hard work and we learn from our mistakes.’ They have answered the question ‘what do we need to help us grow?’ We hoped this would give them a better sense of who they are and what they need to do to be the people they want to be.

They began by looking at how our faith helps us to grow. The children investigated the life of St Vincent and how our values encourage our spiritual and personal growth.

The children then also looked at how our rights help our growth and they looked closely at the United Nations convention of the child and how we both have rights and responsibilities which must be respected. The children then compared these rights to James from Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant peach to see how he is treated and they investigated how this may affect him and looked at his emotional and social development across the book.

The children had studied all about the personal and social developments that are needed to help us flourish, how we can support others to grow safely and then investigated what we need to survive and thrive in our own bodies. They investigated the key elements of survival and what we need to survive, they also investigated different animals and their habitats.

The children also went on an invertebrate hunt to find these animals.

Exploring the outdoors further, the children were fascinated by the different parts of plants, how they grow and the different life cycles they experience. They also looked at the water cycle and how this process is an essential part of our survival and the growth of animals and plants alike. This process is an essential part of our survival and the growth of animals and plants alike.

Finally, the children looked at how James has grown over the course of the book, how we grow and they took on his role to gauge how he felt at the beginning and end of the book.

The children even created their own digital interpretation of james and the giant peach and created a song from James and The Giant Peach!

Please look below for the children’s take on what they have learnt about how we grow.

Thank you for you continued support, we wish you a happy and Holy Christmas

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LKS2 Team

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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:

  • Live their lives by the Gospel and Vincentian values instilled in them at school.
  • Understand that everyone has the right and responsibility to live in our world constructively and ensure that we leave it in a better state than when we entered it by living and working through the principles of Catholic Social Teaching in line with the UNCRC (United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child)
  • Experience creativity across the curriculum through specialist art and dance lessons and opportunities to take part in art, music, dance and creative writing competitions.
  • Know the joy of outdoor learning, the rich biodiversity within our school grounds and locality and develop a responsibility for the environment we share as stewards.
  • Understand their place in the world, globally and locally, knowing the history of our school, Mill Hill and the Daughters of Charity and knowing where our diverse community members have their roots across the world.
  • Be ready and well-prepared for their next steps in life, having high aspirations for themselves and for others because they have experienced success and a belief in learning from mistakes.
  • Have a life-long curiosity, stimulated by the driving questions of Project Based Learning approach to the curriculum fostering inquiry and independent learning skills, which give confidence to ask big questions about the world.
  • Be literate and numerate having experienced a rich variety of texts to stimulate and excite the mind while developing skills in investigating and problem solving to enable them to excel in their future passions.
  • Be confident and happy young people that have a broad understanding and tolerance of the world and others around them with excellent communication skills honed by their experience of Restorative Justice and respect of the dignity and wishes of the individual.

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.