St Joseph's Catholic Primary School

Commando Joe's

In Summer 2019, St Joseph's School began to develop a new curriculum. After much research, we decided to centre our curriculum around the Commando Joe's scheme. We were drawn in by their primary statement - 

‘No Child Left Behind’ is our founding ethos. The primary aim of our programmes is to improve the educational outcomes for children and young people.

Our staff wholeheartedly agreed with this statement and we wanted to create a curriculum which taught every child the skills they needed to achieve their full potential and have high aspirations. The scheme provides early intervention for any children disengaged with their education, at the same time as challenging pupils who excel academically. The Commando Joe scheme also specialises in behaviour management, growth-mindset development and life skills education.

Using the Commando Joe schemes as a starting point, St Joseph's School have developed a unique, broad and balanced topic based curriculum for Y1-Y6 which incorporates the Programmes of Study (PoS) within the National Curriculum under a variety of topic headings. The senior leaders have analysed the National Curriculum and split the PoS between the classes within each Key Stage to ensure this broad and balanced curriculum is created. Since September 2023, we have taught Geography, History, Art and Design Technology through these topic based lessons. The objectives are often revisited several times throughout the key stage and we ensure progression using the Rainbow Continuum progressive skills list. 

One of the main aspects that made the Commando Joe scheme stand out to us is their use of missions to develop the key skills RESPECT. Examples of our missions can be seen using the links below the Commando Joe Logo. We firmly believe these key skills are essential to ensure every child becomes a confident and aspirational learner, and therefore, will achieve their full potential. 

Further information about 'Commando Joe's can be viewed by clicking here.

Although the outline for the year is planned in advance, teachers amend their yearly plans, making amendments based on the skills the children need to cover or revisit. This has helped us to ensure a Mastery approach to the Foundation Topics - practicing, repeating, applying and embedding the skills for each subject across the year. The use of the Rainbow Continuum ensures that all subject specific skills are taught within each year group and these skills are progressive for each subject as the children progress through each year group and key stage. The use of this scheme also ensures that skills are taught, practiced, and repeated throughout a key stage to deepen the children's understanding and skillset.

Commando Joe Missions 

Commando Joe Missions with Parents