Quality of Education

Intent

“Our Catholic faith is at the heart of the lessons we teach. We are helping to form citizens of the future to be kind, respectful, empathetic, responsible, knowledgeable, hardworking and moral.”

The sentences above are our guiding principles for our curriculum. Staff at our school work conscientiously and collaboratively to plan a curriculum which secures students’ interest and engagement as well as their progress. We strive each and every day, to deliver a quality of education which meets these aims and expectations.

Implementation

We are committed to fostering a culture of continuous improvement in teaching and learning, a commitment that directly translates into better outcomes for our students. We acknowledge that the pursuit of educational excellence is a continuous journey, demanding the unwavering dedication and collaborative endeavours of our entire school community. Consequently, it is imperative to articulate a robust, transparent, and collectively embraced vision that encompasses both our aspirations and the practical execution of our goals.

Our vision for teaching and learning is centred on fostering a culture of expert and systematic instruction, designed to uphold a standard of unwavering excellence in both teaching and learning practices. This vision revolves around the concept of depth:

• Depth in teaching means that we see our teachers as experts, who are empowered to focus on communicating their subject expertise and knowledge to our students.
• Depth in learning means that we believe in the building of schemata, and expect all of our students to be challenged and equipped to ensure they achieve a deep understanding.

We focus on promoting and embedding Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. The main aim is to support teachers seeking to engage with cognitive science and the wider world of education research.

We must start with what students know and draw links to the new material or ask questions that help students make these connections (Rosenshine, 2012).

When people learn they develop their mental models. By 'mental model' we mean what is sometimes known as 'schema' or 'schemata' (Education Endowment Foundation, 2021), which is the way information is organised in long-term memory (Sweller et al., 1998). Therefore, by supporting students to learn material, teachers are supporting the development of their mental models in that area. Once their mental models are more developed in an area, students will need less support applying what they know.

View our policies and key documents regarding Quality of Education below: