Our Curriculum Intent
At Brighstone CE Primary School, our intent is to build a community of learners with high expectations and aspirations for the present and the future. We intend to achieve this by developing lifelong learning behaviours through an engaging, responsive, stimulating, challenging and enquiry-based curriculum, which encourages children to build connections and apply knowledge, skills and understanding in a wide range of relevant and meaningful contexts.
We intend to:
- Create an ethos that embeds our core values of love, courage and respect
- Have a broad, balanced and coherent curriculum that encompasses the National Curriculum
- Ensure opportunities for equity that enable every child to develop socially, emotionally, creatively, academically and physically in an environment where they are all valued and respected as individuals
- Develop a culture where independence and collaboration enable children to have the confidence to take risks and recognise that making mistakes is part of learning
- Inspire excellence by developing a love of learning through support, challenge, questioning and enquiry
- Help children to develop meaningful and memorable connections within and across learning journeys to secure deeper knowledge and understanding
- Encourage high expectations to ensure high standards across all subjects
- Ensure a range of high quality outcomes to make the learning purposeful and relevant
- Ensure that all subjects have a long-term plan with clear progression in skills and teaching sequences that allow children to cumulatively build knowledge and skills
Our Curriculum Implementation
- Core subjects are taught discretely with opportunities for connections and applications within rich cross-curricular topics.
- Progression of knowledge, skills and understanding is carefully planned, reviewed and adapted yearly to ensure that children’s learning builds over time, ensuring they meet the next stage in their learning.
- Individual needs, including SEND, are supported or challenged through differentiation and variation where appropriate.
- Where possible, foundation subjects are incorporated within topics to enable children to make connections, develop schema and embed learning over time.
- At the start and end of topics, children (as a class or individually) start with a KWL grid: What we know, what we want to know, and what we have learnt). This then informs planning.
- Learning journeys start with a hook and a big question, and finish with an outcome (e.g. class museum, class book, presentation, a piece of writing, a display of work) to provide a purpose for learning.
- Children’s knowledge is embedded through repeated revisiting (e.g. quick quizzes, quick fire questions, songs, chants, games etc…)
- Enrichment opportunities such as field studies, visits, workshops, visitors, extra-curricular activities and links with the wider community are planned into every topic.
- Children have the opportunity to participate in a community project at least once a year.
- Opportunities are planned for the building of independent skills (e.g. research, choosing and using appropriate resources and strategies) and collaborative skills (e.g. group work, paired work, shared outcomes).
- Subject leaders support staff with subject knowledge, planning and assessment.
- Each foundation subject leader identifies key skills and knowledge that will be assessed in each unit of work.
- Formative assessment is used to help staff ascertain the children’s next steps (e.g. closing gaps or providing challenge) and teaching responds to children’s needs.
- Opportunities are planned for year groups to work alongside each other (e.g. in their house teams).
- Our values of love, courage and respect are promoted throughout the wider curriculum, including through discussion, valuing mistakes, encouraging everyone to try new things, practising collaboration, and celebrating achievements in Golden Worship.
Our Intended Impact
SLT and subject leaders monitor and evaluate the whole curriculum and their subject areas through a range of methods, including pupil conferencing, book scrutinies, learning walks, and questionnaires. They will monitor to see if:
- Children are able to make secure links in their knowledge and understanding, and their storage and retrieval ability is improved.
- Children are inquisitive and keen to ask questions to find out more.
- Children can use and apply their learnt skills across the curriculum (e.g. Reading, Writing, Maths, independence, handwriting) and maintain high standards when using these.
- Children have the knowledge, skills and understanding to be ready for the next stage in their learning.
- Children are respectful citizens who are mindful of their role as part of the wider community.
- Children are able to confidently talk about their learning.