Our Curriculum

Children at St Michael’s are successful: they achieve well, both academically and pastorally. They develop healthy relationships and, through our promotion of Equality and Diversity, our children become well- balanced individuals that will flourish in modern Britain.

For more information on the National Curriculum click here. For more information on our curriculum, please contact the subject lead (found in each year group’s Curriculum Outline) via our email address .

Staff Training

“Learning is memory – or to put it another way, if what we teach doesn’t enter the long-term memory of our students then actually, we haven’t taught them anything. So, then, how can we hack the memory process so that learning (and progress, achievement and better grades) can happen? I give you the up-to-date neuroscience (in very manageable and memorable chunks) and link that neuroscience to specific teaching approaches and strategies”. Robin Launder.

The staff at St Michael’s had a training session with Robin Launder, that investigated 12 strategies to improve memory in our classrooms. Memory and how to hack it! might be a useful link for everyone in our school community.

Forest School/Outdoor Learning

Forest School is an inspirational process that offers all learners regular opportunities to achieve, develop confidence and self-esteem, through hands on learning experiences in our school area.

Forest School is a specialised approach that sits within and complements the wider context of outdoor learning. St Michael’s aims to provide holistic, learner led outdoor learning opportunities for all of the children, in our woodland, year 3 outdoor space, orchard and within the other various outdoor spaces. Lessons, in the outdoor environment, offer children opportunities to achieve, develop confidence and self-esteem through hands on learning experiences.

Today’s children are not always as confident in taking risks. Outdoor Learning enables children to experience managed risk and make their own decisions and therefore help produce more confident individuals. Physical activity, through games, crafts and play, encourages better development of gross and fine motor skills; a more balanced and a fitter child.  In an environment, outside the formal educational settings of classrooms, these opportunities create its own learning environment framed by safety routines and established boundaries. Children experience active learning, in a less structured manner, which suits the individual learning styles of many children.