As outlined in our Vision and Values Statement, we aim to provide excellent learning opportunities for our pupils, promoting achievement in every area and nurturing social, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.
As our children gain confidence, knowledge and skills we hope that they will go on to become compassionate, well balanced young people. They will take their place in society as active citizens, economically independent, exemplifying the British values of equality, tolerance, democracy, individual liberty and rule of law.
Our starting point for curriculum design are our four foundations.
We aim to help our pupils develop an inner discipline that encourages them to not just ‘follow the crowd’. We want them to make up their own minds using an evidence based approach and be ready to accept responsibility for what they do. They will grow through making choices, taking responsibility and being honest with themselves and others. SMSC is taught in a cross curricular way throughout the year groups (see our curriculum map) and is not limited to specific Personal, Social, Health and citizenship Education (PSHCE) or Religious Education (RE) lessons.
Character and resilience are the qualities, the inner resources that we call on to get us through the frustrations and setbacks that are part and parcel of life. We must instil these qualities in our children and make sure that they are ready to make their way in the world as robust and confident individuals. In order to achieve this we have incorporated the five foundations for building character in to our curriculum: sport, creativity, performing, the world of work, volunteering and membership.
At our school we see the Year 1 to Year 6 curriculum as a body of subject-specific knowledge defined by us and the National Curriculum and so we take a knowledge led approach. Skills are an outcome of the curriculum, not its purpose. When children are ‘fluent’ in knowledge, such as number bonds or 8 times tables-they can then apply them as skills.
We have a clear focus on subjects as units to deliver the curriculum. Our Curriculum Map, and ‘Units of Work’ in every subject, contain the knowledge that we have identified as essential in our school.
Our ‘Units of Work’ in each subject have been carefully crafted by expert teachers across our Four School Partnership, identifying composite tasks and breaking them down in to component tasks to ensure sequential, layered knowledge acquisition. These ‘Units of Work’ also support our particular style of teaching and help with the speedy and effective induction of new staff. This is particularly important in an inner London environment where the cost of accommodation prevents most of our staff from being able to stay with us long term.
We use ‘Knowledge Organisers’ in order to help children with knowledge retention and issues around working memory. Our teaching style has a strong focus on the effective retention and use of subject specific vocabulary using ‘Walk The Word’ techniques.
Each term we suspend the usual curriculum for a week in order for everyone to take part in a Whole School Project Week. In the recent past these have included Peace Week, Equalities Week, Christian Social Justice Week, Keeping Safe Week and careers Week.
As we are situated in central London, we use London as our classroom, providing pupils with a very wide range of off site visits and visitors to enhance their learning.
Look at the Curriculum Gallery section of our website for more information about individual subjects in our curriculum.
Look at our Curriculum Map below for an overview of subjects, year by year.
Look at our Curriculum Overviews for Parents/Carers to see termly information about our curriculum and how parents/carers might support children with their learning at home.
We constantly review our curriculum through regular subject based monitoring activity across the Five School Partnership to ensure sequential, layered knowledge acquisition and check that pupil outcomes are of a very high quality.
We retain banks of high quality pupil work in order to induct new staff to our schools as effectively as possible, sharing our very high expectations.
Children love to show what they know and what they can do. They make very good progress using this approach as evidenced by our pupil achievement data year on year, the work in their books and their attitude to learning.
What is your child learning this term?