At Sacred Heart, our aim is to provide the highest‑quality education and the most exciting opportunities to inspire every child. Our curriculum is bespoke: rooted in the National Curriculum but carefully shaped to reflect the needs, interests and context of our pupils and community. Our 3‑5‑7 vision and values drive everything we do, particularly the ‘Five Keys’—the core characteristics we want every child to embody by the time they leave us in Year 6.

Our curriculum is designed to develop creative, critical thinkers with secure, embedded knowledge and the confidence, ability and motivation to make a positive difference in the world.

Our teaching approach is rooted in Rosenshine’s Principles of Direct Instruction, an evidence-informed framework that supports high-quality teaching and learning:

1. Daily review
2. Presenting new material in small steps
3. Asking questions
4. Providing models
5. Guided practice
6. Checking for understanding
7. Achieving high success rates
8. Providing scaffolds
9. Independent practice
10. Regular weekly and monthly review

This approach supports teachers in applying cognitive science principles to classroom practice and ensures consistent, effective teaching across the school.

Religious Education

At Sacred Heart, we use the Dr Margaret Carswell Framework Model to teach religion across the school. The framework is taught in a three year cycle and which links to the liturgical year.

The content of this Model offers a systematic programme of study which covers all the strands and requirements of the Curriculum Directory. 

Each topic plan sets out the areas taught from Revelation, Church, Celebration and Life in Christ ensuring progression and depth of provision.

English

English sits at the heart of our curriculum. We aim to nurture a genuine love of reading through widespread reading for pleasure and exposure to high‑quality texts. We teach children to value strong communication skills and to understand the importance of reading and writing across all areas of learning. Through rich literature, purposeful writing opportunities and explicit vocabulary instruction, we ensure pupils become confident, articulate communicators.

Mathematics

At Sacred Heart, we want every child to experience a high‑quality mathematics education that develops fluency, deep understanding and a sense of enjoyment. Our curriculum ensures pupils become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, can reason mathematically and can apply their knowledge to solve problems with increasing sophistication.

We predominantly use the White Rose scheme, enhanced by a range of high‑quality resources that support highly scaffolded teaching through concrete, pictorial and abstract approaches. This enables pupils to build strong conceptual understanding, make meaningful mathematical connections and develop confidence as mathematicians.

Foundation Subjects

We teach the Foundation Subjects as distinct disciplines, while also taking a joined‑up approach to Geography, History, Art and Design Technology. These subjects are organised in alternating half‑termly blocks—for example, History and Art in Autumn 1, followed by Geography and DT in Autumn 2. This structure allows pupils to revisit and deepen knowledge, make connections across subjects and engage in meaningful, coherent learning sequences.

We follow dedicated schemes of work for RE, PSHE, Computing, Music, Spanish and Science, making purposeful links to other subjects where appropriate. Topics have been carefully selected to ensure full coverage of the National Curriculum, opportunities to explore ideas in depth, and clear progression from year to year.

High‑quality texts, plays and poems are chosen in English to complement and enrich the wider curriculum, deepening pupils’ understanding of the focus topic. All units of study include planned practical experiences—such as fieldwork, museum visits, workshops and hands‑on investigations—that bring learning to life and strengthen pupils’ cultural capital.

A Sacred Heart Child: 

When a child leaves Sacred Heart at the end of Year 6 we aspire for them to have developed the following qualities (known to our community as 'The Five Keys'):

The Five Keys	What do these mean?
Hunger to Achieve	To work hard, even in the face of challenges and difficulties.  To become better at something today that they found harder yesterday. To be aspirational for themselves with a sense of their own potential and how they can succeed in what they want to achieve
The Power of Me	To be resilient  To be able to self- regulate their emotions To understand the importance of physical and emotional wellbeing and have strategies to achieve this
Community Unity	To be compassionate, show respect for others, value difference and diversity and be able to work collaboratively. To be an active citizen with the tools to participate in a democratic society and make a difference. To treat their neighbours as they would like to be treated, linking with the Gospel values of our school and mission statement: 'To respect our neighbour'.
Curiosity and Wonder	To be able to think critically and creatively and have the skills to find things out, ask questions, solve problems, reason, analyse and debate. To be curious, have a thirst for knowledge, make connections between things they have learnt about and apply their learning in different contexts.
Being Safe and Responsible	To be safe in all areas of life, both on and offline.  To make safe and responsible decisions when presented with choices.  To be able to identify trusted adults around them.

We believe by developing these qualities, our children will be ready for the next stage of their educational journey, have high aspirations for themselves and a strong sense of respect and belonging for their community.