​Curriculum Intent

At St Dunstan’s, we have designed a unique curriculum with children at its heart, with a cohesive vision that helps pupils understand and value how they fit into and contribute to the local and Global community. Pope Francis asks all of us to become ‘builders of a new humanity.’ We intend that through our Building the Kingdom curriculum, our community becomes one that advocates for social justice, fights for equality and works towards sustainability.

Our curriculum has God’s love and the messages of Laudato Si at its core whilst also recognising in these unprecedented times that emotional learning is equally important. Through our curriculum, our pupils will be equipped to serve our local community, and we will instil in them a passion for undertaking Corporal Acts of Mercy to make our city a better place – whatever age our children, they will learn to make a positive difference and change for the better. Our message is that no one is too small to make a difference.

We deliver a coherently planned curriculum with progressive development and understanding of key knowledge and skills. Our curriculum driver is our faith, and we follow the Catholic Social Teachings alongside Birmingham Archdiocese strategy, ‘Learning and growing as the people of God’. In addition to this, we integrate the requirements of the 2014 National Curriculum engagingly, meeting the needs of future citizens and equipping all of our children with foundations for life.

Each term, we explore a different theme within Catholic Social Teachings.

Cycle A
Autumn – Dignity of the Human Person
Spring – Options for the Poor and Vulnerable
Summer - Stewardship

Cycle B
Autumn – Family and Community
Spring – Dignity of Work
Summer – Solidarity and the Common Good

All subjects are then linked to this theme through a Big Question, which forms the basis of the learning.

To ensure that children understand the unique contribution of individual subject areas, we teach each some non-core subject in a block of lessons over a week rather than weekly lessons over a term. The whole school teaches the same subject in the same week.