A curriculum for children to Navigate, Inspire, Challenge and Succeed

At St Nicolas CE School, our vision is for every child to navigate, inspire, challenge and succeed in their learning and in their personal development. Our work is rooted in Christian values and a commitment to providing an ambitious, inclusive curriculum for the whole community. We are proud to serve children from diverse backgrounds and with a broad range of needs, and we aim to ensure that every child leaves us well-prepared for the next stage of their education.

Our curriculum is designed to raise aspirations, secure foundational knowledge and develop confident learners who love learning and make a positive contribution as they live life to the full.

Intent

Our curriculum intent is centred on ensuring children learn more, know more and remember more through a connected, knowledge‑rich curriculum. Reading is the golden thread that underpins all learning, enabling children to access the full curriculum and develop the language needed for success.

• Navigate: We build secure starting points by activating prior knowledge and create positive learning behaviours through well-structured projects.
• Inspire: Our children are encouraged to think and develop curiosity about the world around them to become independent learners.
• Challenge: We ensure strong progression of knowledge and vocabulary, with high expectations for all, including children with SEND.
• Succeed: Children apply their learning independently, culminating in meaningful ‘Success Events’ and opportunities to celebrate achievement.

Our intent prioritises inclusion: all children, including disadvantaged and SEND learners, access the full curriculum with adaptations.

Oracy

Language acquisition surrounds our curriculum at St Nicolas.  Our children need the vocabulary to be able to express themselves.  Communication is the key to 'articulating ideas, developing understanding and engaging with others'.  It encompasses both learning to talk, and is the vehicle for learning through talk.  Vocabulary teaching supports children to develop a wealth of cultural knowledge; it provides a gateway to access the knowledge of the curriculum; and is a tool to use when talents are emerging and skills are advancing in our challenging curriculum.  Language enables children to become confident communicators who are equipped to succeed both now and in the future.

Values

Monthly values at St Nicolas are developed and explored in a variety of ways, which include both weekly whole school and class assemblies.  These are supported by our bespoke assembly programme of study that introduces each value through a key story in the bible where we can reflect on what Christians believe and how this can teach us to develop these key values in our every day living.

Implementation

Our teachers use their knowledge of the children and strong subject knowledge to provide challenge for all through:

• Carefully selected half-termly knowledge-rich projects that are thought-provoking and provide the children with broad experiences preparing them for their next stage in life.
• A thoughtfully designed whole school curriculum map to ensure teaching is sequential, coherent and progressive, and builds on each stage of their learning journey.
• Carefully selected high quality texts which develop the skills to ‘learn to read’ and ‘read to learn’.
• Four distinct aspects (elements) across each half-term: (approach) Navigate, Inspire, Challenge and Succeed.
• Our Navigate phase is where we gather prior knowledge with the children, focusing on what the children already know and what they want to find out. A clear, defined and final destination challenges are set, the new project is ‘launched’ and the class embark on their learning journey. Knowledge mats are shared with families to support the children as they navigate the learning. 
• Teachers carefully consider how to inspire our children through the project using a text-rich curriculum, real-life/hands-on experiences, visits in school from members of our wider school family and links or visits within our Abingdon community.

• Challenge for all as we equip the children with essential key skills, knowledge, concepts and values through quality first teaching. Adaptive teaching is strong, allowing pupils with SEND to access ambitious content while developing independence.

• A final Succeed week which provides key assessment opportunities.  Over the year, ‘Success events’ take place giving the children a real audience. Classroom displays are built through the half-term as a record of their learning journey.

Impact

Our curriculum has impact when:

• Children achieve well across the curriculum, demonstrating secure knowledge, positive learning behaviours and increasing independence.
• Children with SEND make strong progress from starting points and access all subjects successfully.
• Reading outcomes remain consistently strong, with children reading fluently, widely and confidently.
• Children show curiosity, resilience and pride—demonstrating our school values in action.
• Behaviour is calm, respectful and purposeful, enabling learning to flourish.
• Children articulate their learning clearly, using subject‑specific vocabulary.
• Children leave us ready for secondary school, well‑equipped both academically and socially.
• Success events, pupil voice and work scrutiny show children retaining key knowledge and applying it independently.