School Values

Our aim is to grow global citizens. We want our children in the future to have the choice and ability to live and work anywhere in the world.  We want our children to be happy and healthy and live with a Christian ethos of compassion and respect.

Key drivers

Our curriculum is aimed to grow global citizens.
We have identified key drivers that will run through the curriculum to ensure children are equipped with essential knowledge and skills which uphold our vision.

Fun:

We want our children to enjoy a life full of positive experiences and enjoyment.

Unique:

We celebrate diversity and our differences and be proud that we are not the same as anyone else whilst respecting other faiths, communities, and beliefs.

Think and Talk:

We can articulate our thinking using specific vocabulary. We want our children to speak up, express themselves and be reflective.

Understanding of the world:

We learn the purpose of our subjects in the modern world. We will aim to develop the pupils’ knowledge and understanding of the world, providing opportunities for learning within and beyond the classroom. We will foster an attitude of care and respect where children understand how actions and decisions impact upon the world, both within the local and global environment.

Read:

We believe reading is the single most important activity for children to access the curriculum and to thrive in the wider world.

Exercise:

Throughout our curriculum and extra-curricular provision we will seek opportunities to encourage children to lead a healthy lifestyle and to help pupils develop the physical and mental strength to be successful and happy.

Spirituality:

We want our children to have a relationship with God and have an interest and fascination with the intangible. We want this to inform their perspective on life and their interest in and have a respect for different people’s feelings and values.

Curriculum design

Our knowledge-based curriculum has been specifically designed to fit within the context and locality of the school and is designed for children to develop an interconnected web of knowledge with the intent of providing pupils with a variety of opportunities to enable our pupils 'to know more, remember more, in order to achieve more'.

​The diagram below details how our curriculum is structured:

There are 3 central themes that we look to incorporate into our curriculum. These are sustainability, equality, and empowerment (SEE). We believe, given the community where we live, that for our children to be true global citizens they need knowledge and understanding of these 3 themes.

Implementation

Cognitive science tells us that working memory is limited and that cognitive load is too high if students are rushed through content. This limits the acquisition of long-term memory. Cognitive science also tells us that in order for students to become creative thinkers or have a greater depth of understanding they must first master the basics, which takes time. Our curriculum has been designed to reflect our view that the acquisition of knowledge and skills are closely linked, and that both are essential for children to achieve in Britain and the wider world. Our curriculum is framed to reflect the ‘Purpose and Aims’ of the NC and so support the children’s progress. The same concepts of equality, empowerment and sustainability are explored in a wide breadth of topics and pupils return to them repeatedly, gradually building an understanding of them. Our curriculum has been mapped to ensure that we fully cover all requirements of the National Curriculum and that current learning builds upon pupil’s prior learning in approach, subject content, and vocabulary.

Every subject has a co-ordinator who ensures there is progression in the key knowledge and skills that are required in that subject. We strive to empower our co-ordinators to have the tools and knowledge to be experts in their area through continuous professional development. Learning within each topic, though linked by content theme, is structured to develop the children as learners within each separate curriculum subject, i.e., focusing on the characteristics of an effective scientist, an effective historian and so on, alongside content knowledge. While our content is subject specific, our curriculum drivers’ approach, enables us to make intra-curricular links to strengthen schema. This approach enables pupils, over time, to develop an understanding of the distinct nature of different learning ‘disciplines’ whilst creating a knowledge network which enables them to make connections between different subjects and thus enrich their understanding of both. For example, whilst we study art history as part of our Art & Design curriculum, we also understand how some works of art can be a rich source of evidence for the historian.

The learning sequence will be as follows:

• Purpose and possibilities of each subject and topic
• Identify key concepts in the topic
• Recap knowledge including links and connections between topics
• Share a knowledge organiser with pupils and parents for retrieval practice
• Learn individual facts and ideas at preliminary stage
• Developing skills
• Experiential learning
• Assess and revisit

In addition to the planned curriculum, we embrace opportunities to further broaden our pupils’ experiences. This takes many forms including things like:

• whole School themed topic days and weeks, e.g., Multi-faith week, Science Innovation week
• celebration/special days such as International Women’s Day, Internet Safety Day, World Book Day
• participation in school sporting events and competitions
• pupil Leadership roles within school e.g., sports ambassadors, eco-warriors, pupil school council
• a planned schedule of wide-ranging assemblies including bible stories, inspirational figures and protecting the environment
• cultural community events such as Literacy Festival, Reading Book awards, Fit fest
• Learning activities, including exploration of current affairs and global issues through lessons, regular assemblies, and events days
• making full use of our extensive grounds to promote outdoor learning and regular Forest School sessions and visits to the Haycop (local nature reserve)
• after-school clubs such as football, craft, writing club, book club, dance.
• peripatetic music teachers for singing, flute, saxophone, steel pan and clarinet.
• Whole school healthy week

 
Through FUTURES we place a real importance on supporting pupils to develop positive character attributes, which we believe have an impact on their education. We support and encourage the children to take responsibility for themselves as learners and to recognise that being resilient and having a growth mindset is essential to this. The Christian values within the school supports the development of our pupils which they take with them as they move on to secondary education.

Impact

To measure impact in terms of educational outcomes, we use a variety of monitoring approaches including lesson observations linked to coaching, book scrutiny, pupil interview and peer review to see if pedagogical style matches our depth expectations and to benchmark and compare progress over time. Because learning is a change to long-term memory, we do not expect to see impact in the short term. We have ongoing assessment via observation, quizzes, diagnostic tests, and formal assessments in reading (PIRA) and mathematics (PUMA) to generate gap analyses. These inform future planning and targeted intervention and as to whether we consider a pupil to be ‘on track’ to attain end of year expectations in each subject. We also complete formal assessments of pupil attainment against the Early Learning Goals in line with statutory requirements.