Across our collaboration of three small primary schools, we believe it is essential for all children to access a broad and balanced curriculum that offers every child the chance to reach their full potential, that promotes a love of learning and that prepares children for their future lives beyond primary school.
Intention
Our curriculum gives pupils the opportunity to:-
- Experience the challenge and enjoyment of learning
- Understand the purpose and value of learning and see its relevance for their past, present and future
- Develop a rich and deep subject knowledge and explore the full breadth of the curriculum
- Develop new skills and demonstrate their creativity
- Understand the links between different aspects of their learning
- Learn within a coherent and progressive framework
As school communities, we recognise that education is about developing the whole child and we recognise the importance of pupil health and wellbeing and the importance of pupil voice within our schools. Through our teaching and curriculum offer, we aim to: –
- Develop every child’s self-esteem and confidence in their own abilities
- Help all children to respect themselves and others
- Support children to build respectful friendships
- Teach children to reflect on their learning
- Support all children to develop their own interests and be themselves
Pupil voice gives children the opportunity to:
- Make positive contributions to the school and local community
- Explore ways of becoming active citizens
- Make choices about things that are important to them
- Say what they like and dislike about their learning and contribute to planning their own learning
- Take part in democratic activities across the curriculum
- Express their opinions on a range of different subjects and issues
Our approach to teaching aims to:
- Excite, promote and sustain children’s interest
- Promote problem solving, creativity and communication
- Enable children to reflect on and evaluate their own learning
- Encourage innovation and introduce children to entrepreneurialism
- Provide opportunities for children to learn outdoors
- Develop partnerships with external providers that enrich children’s learning experiences
- Hold specialist curriculum days that enrich the curriculum
- Use high quality resources in and out of the classroom
- Encourage the involvement of parents and carers to take part in children’s learning experiences
- Utilise educational visits and off-site experiences to enhance the curriculum provision
Implementation
Our long-term curriculum planning is designed jointly between all three schools to ensure breadth of coverage and development of skills for all pupils. Our pupils are taught in small mixed age classes, so our emphasis when planning the curriculum is based on clear differentiation of age appropriate skills. Where it is necessary to deliver very specific content to certain year groups, e.g. puberty talks, online safety education specific to secondary transition, we combine the pupils from all three schools so that staff can deliver teaching to targeted groups. Since April 2019, children are taught in their own schools on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday each week and pupils from Rookhope and St John’s Chapel are taught together every Thursday and Friday. Pupils from Forest of Teesdale join their peers when weather conditions permit. These joint days enable us to organise the children into EYFS, KS1, LS2 and UKS2 groups so that we can deliver aspects of the curriculum that are challenging to teach in mixed age classes.
We believe that teaching around a core theme is the most effective way to engage pupils and develop enthusiasm for learning. The starting point for our long-term planning is taken from the Cornerstones Curriculum, which enables us to identify many thematic learning experiences. We then identify other aspects of the curriculum which need to be covered and teach these discretely from our theme.
Our Long Term Plans
Please see our planning which explains how learning is developed through a series of topics and themes
