St Paul's Catholic Primary School, V.A.

Promoting Happy, Healthy Minds and Healthy Bodies

At St Paul's, we strive to support pupils, staff and families, not only with the academic aspect of our pupils' development, but also their emotional, social and physical development. As our faith is at our centre, we adopted the Ten:Ten 'Life to the Full' programme, after consultation with all members of our school community. You can find out more details of this in the section below.

Throughout the school year, class teachers tailor their teaching and curriculum to the needs of their particular classes. For example, if there have been bereavements within a particular year group, then literacy work, collective worship or story time will be adapted to support children and explore their feelings.

We are proud to be a very active school and, in addition to the statutory PE lessons, we encourage children to participate in our many active afterschool clubs; try out for our sports teams and give them opportunities to try new sports and activities. All activities that children participate in, both inside and outside of school, are celebrated within our Friday celebration assemblies, where pupils are invited to share their participation and successes.  

We also hold a 'Healthy Week' every year in the Summer term. During this week, we invite outside agencies in to provide drug education to Key Stage 2; run skipping and karate workshops; and discuss diet and nutrition, amongst a variety of other activities.

Promoting Citizenship and British Values

We have a very strong sense of community at St Paul's and are active members of both our church and local community. This is reflected in our charity work for the local hospice; carol singing at Sainsbury's and Trinity Leeds to raise money for local and global charities; singing at the local old people's home and hospice; through our community cafes; and participating in events like 'Clean Air Day' with other local schools. 

Each year, new School Council representatives are elected by each class and House Captains are elected by all of Key Stage 2. During the recent General Election, we held our own elections in school, where children in Year 5 and Year 6 were able to create their own parties and promote something that they wanted to change or improve within the school. Our library became a polling station and all the children had the opportunity to vote.

For over ten years now, Year 6 have been visited by Fabien Hamilton, our local MP, who has talked to the children about our political system and its history and then the children have been invited by him to the Houses of Parliament, where he has taken them for a tour around the building.

PSHE Across the Curriculum

We consistently and enthusiastically encourage the children at St Paul's to be responsible, respectful, caring and active citizens of our school, church, local, national and global communities, through everything we do.

PSHE is not just taught as a discrete subject but through our RE curriculum, where we learn about tolerance and respect for others; in Maths, where we learn about financial capability; in Science, where we educate about germs and diseases and how they spread; in History, where we explore how learning lessons from the past can shape our future; in Geography, where we learn about other cultures and how we can look after our world; in Music and Art; where we learn to appreciate beauty and explore mindfulness; in DT, where we learn how to prepare healthy meals; in Computing, where we learn about how to keep safe online; in PE, where we learn how to keep our body and mind healthy; and through our everyday interactions and conversations, promoting good manners, a growth mindset and high expectations.

Transition

We endeavour to ensure that our children have a smooth transition into their new year group each year.

Reception

In the Summer term, prior to joining our school in Reception, the new starters are invited to attend some morning and afternoon sessions. where they will meet and play with the children who will become their Year 6 buddies and get to know the staff they will be working with.

Year 6 

We have strong relationships with all the local secondary schools (Cardinal Heenan, St John Fisher, GSAL and Allerton High) and this enables us to have a good transition from KS2 to KS3 for all of our children. We start our transition work in the Spring Term in Year 6, when we begin to discuss the changes that will happen in the year ahead and try to develop resilience and other coping strategies to help to deal with these changes. For our vulnerable pupils, we ensure that all the relevant people are fully involved in the transition process and provide all the information and support we can to the secondary school, the pupil and their families, both prior to and after transition.

Other Year Groups

In the Summer term, each class will spend time with their new teacher and in their new classroom, allowing them to get to know each other before the Summer break. As Year 3 move into a new part of the school building and a new playground, they are given the opportunity to spend some time in these areas before the end of the Summer term. This, hopefully, allays any worries or concerns that pupils may have around moving into the next year group. 

Transition Project with Cardinal Heenan

We are engaged in a transition project with Cardinal Heenan High School, which involves some of our  pupils who have moved to Cardinal Heenan, buddying up with KS2 classes and doing some work with them. Throughout the year, different classes and pupils have the opportunity to visit Cardinal Heenan for fun runs, taster days and other activities.

The programme includes:

• Approx. 80 lesson plans for EYFS through to Year 6;
• High-quality videos created by Ten Ten specifically for UK-based Catholic primary schools;
• Programme of prayer and worship music to accompany the scheme of work;
• Assessment Activities;
• Guidance for Programme Coordinators;
• Teaching training sessions;
• Programme Pathways for a variety of school timetables;
• Online Parent Portal for links to home.