Overview
Cherry Hinton Cof E Primary School Curriculum Policy
Introduction
What the school strives to be is captured here in our vision statement:
Love God with heart, soul, mind and strength-and your neighbour as you love yourself
Matthew 22.37-39
We ACT out this verse through our values of Agape, Courage and Thankfulness. Recognising we are all neighbours, we ACT with Agape love, giving us kind hearts, with Courage to ask inquisitive questions of God, others, and ourselves and with Thankfulness for the love, courage, and inspiration God gives.
Intent
Our curriculum is built upon our core values of Agape, Courage and Thankfulness. Our values are the golden threads that run throughout all aspects of our curriculum. We believe these, along with personal, physical and emotional wellbeing will enable our children to become the change-makers amidst the complexities in the 21st century. To nurture this we work hard to ensure every child within our diverse school community is known and understood, enabling them to achieve in a positive atmosphere of warmth and trust and to feel secure, valued and confident.
Through our teaching and learning we aim to develop inquisitive thinkers and inspired learners, with kind hearts. We intend to develop a life-long passion for learning, whilst empowering our children with the skills, knowledge, compassion and wisdom to make a sustained difference in our ever-changing world.
Implementation
At Cherry Hinton Primary School, we learn indoors and outdoors. Pupils go on regular trips in the local area, and into Cambridge and beyond. We regularly invite visitors in. Such opportunities provide rich learning experiences. Such experiences promote questioning, increase vocabulary, ensure discussion and provide motivation for writing. This approach meets the needs of our learners who upon entry need a rich diet of vocabulary acquisition to support communication and language.
The curriculum is designed to ensure that children leave Cherry Hinton Primary School having acquired the knowledge, skills and understanding across the programmes of study of all of the National Curriculum subjects. Progression is planned within each subject to ensure breadth and balance. We ask big questions: History and geography topics and science are planned around questions to which the teaching and learning leads children towards their own answer. We want children to develop skills and a self-awareness of how they learn. We use pre-and post-learning challenges so children can assess their own progress and achievement.
In our curriculum, we learn how we can ACT OUT our values towards ourselves, each other and into the world beyond the classroom. We promote high levels of emotional wellbeing and intelligence. We are passionate about physical fitness with daily ACT Active for the whole school. We care for our world, starting with our school grounds and look for ways to be sustainable and eco-friendly. Trees matter and classes visit Cherry Hinton Hall Park termly in order to learn the value of being in nature. We question how to be global citizens of the world through our collective worship, and regular class- based discussions of Big Questions.
Impact
How we measure impact: Monitoring and review
The Headteacher is responsible for the intent, implementation and impact of the curriculum.
The SLT monitors planning and provision, ensuring that all classes are taught the full requirements of the National Curriculum and the appropriate range of knowledge, skills and understanding are developed.
Subject leaders can articulate the intent, implementation and impact for their subject and show how it fits the whole school vision. They monitor the planning and progression for their particular subject. They monitor work produced and the levels of progress for children in their subject. They capture pupil voice as a powerful measure of impact. Children are encouraged to talk about their learning and to articulate how they learn. Leaders also have responsibility for monitoring the way in which resources are stored and managed, and for keeping learning resources up to date.
What our Learning Environment shows about the impact of our curriculum
Our indoor and outdoor environment reflects our curriculum intent and implementation. We use an enquiry- based question to learn about each topic. In each classroom you will see Question Mountains, interactive Working Walls for maths and English, displays showing the value we place on diversity and inclusivity, the importance of pupil voice, growth mind-set, deep thinking and our school’s Christian values. You will also see whole school displays that demonstrate progression in a subject.
Our impact on building knowledge, skills and understanding
Our curriculum plans and progression and assessment documents and the development of knowledge organisers for pupils, ensure that we have a clear understanding of our impact on building knowledge, skills and understanding effectively. We use Focus Education key criteria to ensure robust coverage and correct age related expectations.
Our impact on developing ways of learning
Our children work across the curriculum developing questioning, curiosity, problem solving and deep learning. Children are able to work independently, collaboratively and use technology to support and enhance the curriculum. The frequent trips out and visitors in also provide pupils with the opportunity to learn from other individuals and situations. It helps children to be confident and brave in their learning and prepares them to be effective global citizens of the future.
What our children and parents say about the impact of our curriculum
Parent: “I can’t praise the school highly enough for their inclusive approach to all learning.” “Children always have a chance to express their opinions.”
Pupils: “Teachers are really good at teaching us, giving challenges, helping us. Giving encouragement and good explanations. We learn new things every day.”
February 2021
Equality, Diversity and Accessibility of our curriculum
All aspects of our curriculum are accessible to our children irrespective of their ethnic background, gender, disability, religious or linguistic background and we strive hard to meet the needs of all of our children. We provide a broad, balanced and rich curriculum for all.
For further details please see separate policies:
SEN policy
Equality and Diversity Policy
For further information about the curriculum we teach as Cherry Hinton please contact the Headteacher via the school office.