'The enthusiasm that pupils show in lessons reflects the broad and interesting curriculum.' (Ofsted 2025)

Our school follows the National Curriculum (2014), which outlines the essential knowledge and skills pupils should acquire. However, it is up to each school to decide how to structure and organise their curriculum. (Note that academies and free schools are not required to adhere to the National Curriculum.)

At St. Paul’s CE Primary School, our vision is to ensure that every pupil, no matter where they start, achieves success in their own unique way. To support this vision, we have developed our STAR curriculum.

SUCCESS
THE WORLD
ASPIRATION
RESILIENCE

These four core principles drive our entire curriculum, and they are embedded in the intent of each subject that we teach.

We encourage pupils to aspire, celebrate success, and aim to inspire them to be limitless in their potential. We teach perseverance so that they can excel and be well-prepared for the next stage of their education. Additionally, we place great emphasis on developing resilience in all our pupils. We want them to become self-motivated, independent problem-solvers, equipped to face any challenge with a positive, determined mindset.

While we take pride in being part of our vibrant city by the sea, we also encourage our pupils to keep an open mind and appreciate the diverse world around them—locally, nationally, and globally.

To further enhance the personal development of our pupils, we hold class and whole-school breakout sessions. These sessions focus on important events and celebrations such as Black History Month and International Women’s Day. These activities are in addition to the National Curriculum and aim to raise awareness of the broader issues our pupils will face as global citizens of tomorrow.

As a Church of England school, we base all that we do on our school Christian values of love, respect, courage, and forgiveness, following the teachings of Jesus.

If you have any questions regarding our curriculum, please feel free to contact Mrs Quinn-Briton, Headteacher and Curriculum Lead.

Website Child Protection Policy.

The School operates the following policy on its website regarding the use of photographs and content, to ensure the privacy and safety of pupils at the school:

1. Where pupils are named, only their first names are given unless permission is given by the parent for the family name to be included such as when a pupil receives an award or special achievement.
2. Where a pupil is so named, no photograph of that pupil is shown;
3. Where a photograph is used which shows a number of pupils, no names are displayed.
4. No private information about pupils is ever published on the website

By observing these points, the school ensures that visitors to the website cannot link images of pupils to names of pupils. When choosing photographs for the website, the school is mindful of the way pupils may appear in them, and will not include images which are in any way inappropriate, such as close-up portrait shots of individual pupils.
Also, please note that if pupils - or parents - send email messages to school, using the Contact Us email form, any personal details, including the email address are removed before being added to our message board. Finally, although it's lovely to receive messages, we hope pupils will not be offended, but any emails to individual staff cannot be replied to.

Weblinks statement

Our school website includes links to external sites and free online materials. Such resources are owned by their respective copyrights and we do not lay claim to any material externally produced. Nor do we have responsibility for content on linked sites. These links are checked regularly for appropriateness and continuity. If you find any materials which concern you, please inform us immediately. Should the owner of externally produced material object to a link, the link will be removed immediately.

Cookies statement.

Use of Cookies
Cookies are small pieces of information temporarily stored on your computer’s hard drive or memory. For visitors who register using the logon form registration form under Home, the website will retain your logon username, password and email address. It is not necessary to register as our website pages are public access. Otherwise, the cookies we use do not contain personally identifiable information and are only used to improve your experience when browsing our website by indicating to visitors which pages have been viewed.
Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies. (For example, in Internet Explorer you can refuse all cookie by clicking "Tools", "Internet Options", "Privacy", and selecting "Block all cookies" using the sliding selector.) This will, however, have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites. Please note that cookies can't harm your computer and the cookies we create don't store any information that could personally identify you.
The website contains links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy policies of third party websites. Our school is not responsible for the cookies or privacy statements or other content on external websites which may be accessed by the links from within our school site.
Use of your Personal Information
Our school website does not sell, or otherwise provide, any user information to third parties.

Starting St. Paul's C.E. Primary School

Children aged three to five (nursery and reception) require access to a play-based Foundation Stage curriculum, with six areas of learning, these are:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Communication, Language and Literacy

Problem solving, Reasoning and Numeracy

Knowledge and Understanding of the World

Physical Development

Creative Development

The children have continual access to our large, purpose built, outdoor play area, every day, in all but extreme weathers. Lots of learning happens out here, through a wide range of activities and resources. Many teaching activities take place outdoors. It is a very important part of our provision.

PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Children are helped to learn these important skills through their free choice play and in planned sessions with their key person. We try to foster an atmosphere of care, cooperation and self-control, where children can share, take turns and help each other. We help to develop children's self-esteem by developing an atmosphere where a child's efforts are valued by staff and other children.

COMMUNICATION, LANGUAGE AND LITERACY

Speaking and listening skills are a very important part of your child's development. We encourage talk during play and we develop children's confidence to talk about their experiences and interests.

Your child will learn phonics for reading and spelling. Basic phonics skills are taught to nursery children, such as hearing different sounds, hearing rhythm in chants and rhymes and identifying rhyming words. Once children have learned to identify sounds within words, letters are taught, and therefore children learn to spell and read. Once reception children are learning to recognise letters, a pack is sent home for children to practise each night.

At school we will be sharing books together, creating stories, listening to the stories others create and discussing pictures. We have a quiet book area where children can 'read' familiar stories and tell stories with puppets.

We teach specific reading skills to reception children in large and small group sessions each week.

Reception children visit the school library each week to borrow a book to share with parents at home. Nursery children borrow weekly "Talk Talk" bags, they choose these with their carer as they arrive at school each Tuesday and return them each Monday. Reception children bring reading scheme books home each night, in their book bags and hand them in each morning.

Mark-making happens in many parts of the classroom and is highly encouraged to enhance play. We encourage children to form letters correctly, but will make sure that each child is ready to write letters by a variety of activities which develop manipulative skills. They will be proud of their work; drawings and squiggles soon develop into recognisable letter shapes and eventually into sentences.

PROBLEM SOLVING, REASONING AND NUMERACY

Your child will get lots of practical experience of working with numbers to make sure that they understand concepts. They will also participate in oral and mental maths activities with a big emphasis on counting in different contexts. Number rhymes are an important part of this. 

There will be lots of opportunities for your child to develop maths vocabulary such as the language of addition, subtraction, shape, space and measure. 

Specific maths objectives are taught in large and small group practical activities and learning is further developed through play in many areas of the unit. 

We have a well resourced maths area, both indoors and outdoors, where children can continue to develop and practise their skills.

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD

This area of learning involves children having lots of experiences, with opportunities to investigate and ask questions and to use a wide range of resources. It includes areas of science, history, geography, food technology, information & communication technology, design technology, religion and culture.

Amongst other things, children will:

* handle natural objects

* investigate properties of water, ice, wet and dry sand

* use construction kits and materials

* investigate the outdoor environment

* plant seeds and care for plants

* bake and cook

* use computers, an interactive whiteboard, CD players and programmable toys

* handle topic related resources in our science area or interest table.

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

In this area of learning, children develop gross motor skills such as whole body movement and coordination, balance, negotiating obstacles, using large equipment and awareness of space. They also develop fine motor skills, such as pencil control, manipulating small equipment and malleable materials and using tools like scissors.

CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT

This area of learning develops art, music, dance, singing, imaginative play, role play. Children are encouraged to respond imaginatively to their experiences by using the many resources in class. We have a creative area, a painting area and a malleable area. We have indoor and outdoor role play areas. We have lots of 'small world' toys to match children's interests.

To fulfil the aims of the school, and of the Foundation Stage curriculum, we provide opportunities for your child to learn through their own interests and through well-planned adult directed tasks. We provide a variety of interesting, relevant adult directed activities with specific learning objectives, designed for your child's needs at that time. We also provide a large range of resources and activities, which your child can choose to access. Children will feel they are 'playing' and a great deal of learning will happen through play.