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Fawbert & Barnard's Primary School

Learning for Life

Curriculum

Curriculum Intent Statement

Our pupil's' needs and backgrounds and our values for learning underpin all areas of our curriculum:

'Learning for life'

At Fawbert & Barnard's we want all of our pupils to enjoy school - whilst also becoming resilient, ambitious, independent learners who are prepared for a changing, global society.

We offer a designed range of experiences and provision which support a full spectrum of academic, physical, spiritual , moral, social and cultural activities that enrich pupils' lives and provide them with the confidence, skills and knowledge to progress to the next stage of their education.

We believe that our pupils should experience a rich curriculum which balances academic and personal development.  We recognise the importance of all National Curriculum subjects. Physical and mental well-being are valued and prioritised through our consideration of curriculum design.  We teach all subjects in the National Curriculum, as well as following the agreed local syllabus for Religious Education, along with a well-planned and structured program of personal development.  Our aim is for our pupils to thrive and achieve well developing high ambitions and the knowledge and cultural capital to succeed in life.

We plan our curriculum for security and depth of learning.  To do this, we ensure that pupils don't just cover the curriculum but return to the key concepts, knowledge and skills over and over - each time gaining a deeper and more secure understanding, so that application of ideas and knowledge across different subjects is possible.

We promote the learning and development of our youngest children and ensure they are ready for Key Stage 1. 

We promote positive attitudes towards learning, ensuring equal access to learning for all pupils, with high expectations for every pupil and appropriate levels of challenge and support.

At Fawbert & Barnard's Primary, we use the Ofsted inspection framework as a helpful starting point for making curriculum decisions.  The framework enables us to plan our curriculum work around three key ways of thinking: Intent, Implementation and Impact.

Intent

We intend to create a curriculum:

  • That challenges pupils but is accessible to all.
  • That is coherently planned and sequenced.
  • That is successfully adapted, designed and developed for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities.
  • That is broad and balanced for all pupils.

 

The Big Ideas at Fawbert and Barnard’s Primary School:

The big ideas are key threads that link the topics through time and subject. They link together each year’s knowledge building on prior learning, allowing pupils at Fawbert and Barnard’s to become life-long learners. Subject leaders have come together thinking about our children to determine the thread that links all their topics together. These are more than just three words on a page, they are what creates better thinkers, encourages curiosity as well as and supports  remembering and linking knowledge from previous years. 

Reception and Year 1: At the beginning of the pupil’s journey, they will learn the basic names of subjects. They will be confident in identifying what lessons they may be in and by the end of Year 1 understand how to decide which subject they are learning. 

Year 2 and Year 3: This period will allow pupils to begin to explore the three big ideas, understand what they underpin for each subject and how they link together. The phrase ‘link, link, link’ will be used to begin to explore the schema of their subject. 

Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6: At this stage, children will be able to identify the subject and big ideas that they are learning. They can discuss previous topics in the subject they have learnt from previous years and discuss openly how they have met a big idea in a specific subject. 

Throughout the big ideas, we will continue to thread the links together to ensure pupils are confident with discussing what they are learning and how this supports them to continue to learn for life. 

 

 

Further information can be found in our Curriculum Policy.