At St. Mary's we strive to provide ample opportunities to enhance the children’s learning wherever possible to work alongside the curriculum. Throughout the year, we organise themed days/weeks on a rota basis including: FSC Day, Fairtrade Week, Remembrance Week, Internet Safety Week, Health Week, STEM week etc. to further develop the opportunities we give our pupils and to enhance our curriculum offer.

Parents and members of the school community are often invited into school to share and celebrate the achievements of the children through prayer and liturgy, assemblies, galleries and celebration events. 

To help bring learning to life teachers highly value the importance of bringing visitors into school and taking pupils on learning visits for a range of different learning purposes. In addition, we invest in specialist educational providers such as Music Services, ICT based companies and specialist sports coaches from Chorley School Sports Partnership to ensure that our learning offer for our children is the best it can possibly be.

At St Mary's we recognise the importance of curriculum enhancement and we make sure that the impact is positive, therefore raising pupils’ enjoyment and achievement.

Most recently, Year 6 have made a special trip to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster to visit the Speaker of the House, Chorley MP, Sir Lindsay Hoyle where they will learn about laws, debating, voting and Parliament’s history - before taking a tour of one of the world’s most famous buildings.

Some other curriculum enhancement include:

  • Canadian Embassy’s Arctic Alive Map visiting school in 2018 and September 2019 to help children learn about the Arctic and some of the recent issues with climate change and global warming. 
  • Building Bridges Programme to bring RE to life and help support community cohesion and diversity of religions and cultures. 
  • Blackburn Cathedral's Sing Together Project for our school choir.
  • Carol singing to members of the SVP community. 
  • Lancashire Music Service partnership for musical instrument teaching
  • Bikeability programme
  • Balance bikes training  
  • Chorley Lodge Artists Visit
  • Ebb and Flo author visits
  • Runshaw College Musical Theatre Performance
  • BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Schools visit 
  • Lancashire Fire and Rescue visits for Year 2 and Year 6
  • RNLI visit for Year 2, 6 and Reception based on safety around water 
  • PEAS Art consultant support for the whole school
  • Isle of Man Residential Trip for Y6
  • Local Area visit of Astley Hall in Y4. 
  • Locality Walk to explore the houses of WWI soldiers for Year 2 who left home and did not return. 
  • Chorley School Sport Partnership for KS2 teaching
  • Specialist French teacher for KS2
  • Money Management classes by Secondary school link teacher Mr Souter
  • Chorley Swimming Baths lessons for Year 4
  • Theatre Trips for the whole school in December every year
  • Chester Zoo visit in February 2020. 
  • International school link in partnership with British Council Connecting Classrooms Programme (click here for more information)
  • Kung Fu, Judo lessons and other specialist sports lessons delivered as extra-curricular classes. 

More detail about the curriculum and learning in each class is available in the half-termly curriculum newsletters available on this website here and on the long term plans which can be viewed on the curriculum tab.