POLICY STATEMENT

It is the policy of the Board of Governors, that the school will implement and deliver the Revised Northern Ireland Curriculum, having regard to the needs, experience, interests, aptitudes and stage of development of the pupils together with the resources both human and physical, available to the school.

AREAS OF STUDY

St Jarlath’s offers a curriculum that is balanced and broadly based, covering the five major areas of study namely:

Language and Literacy
Mathematics and Numeracy
World Around Us
The Arts
Physical Development and Movement
Personal Development and Mutual Understanding
Religious Education
and the Cross Curricular skills of:

Communication
Using Mathematics
Using ICT
alongside Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities

CURRICULUM DELIVERY

In our teaching we use a variety of methods – whole class, groups, individuals – and pupils frequently explore subject areas through a thematic or topic approach. In their planning and delivering of lessons, teachers take great care to provide for differentiation, i.e. to ensure that materials are presented at a variety of levels to cater for the wide range of abilities (or difficulties) normally found among children in all mixed ability classes.

Children are introduced to the use of computers as early as possible, with every classroom being equipped with at least two computers. The older children will also be introduced to electronic mailing and the Internet. The school has a separate policy for the Acceptable use of the Internet, which is available for inspection on request.

We are also deeply committed to promoting a positive attitude to books and the ownership of books, with children from their earliest years being provided with many opportunities to hear and read stories, to avail of the well-stocked class libraries, the central library and the Annual Book Fair.

Parents are encouraged to take an active role in their child’s reading by becoming involved in our Paired Reading Programme.