Our Curriculum

INTENT

We have a clear and shared vision and language to talk about our curriculum, and now more than ever, we recognise our curriculum is our teaching today; preparing us for tomorrow. Our curriculum intends to raise standards and close the gap whilst developing well rounded citizens who understand themselves and others in our ever-changing world.

Our curriculum is dependent on books, words, language and literature. We want our children to LIVE our curriculum today and continue to LIVE it in the future. Our curriculum prepares children for their next steps by placing importance on the following curriculum strands:

 

We want our curriculum to:

Develop Life-Long Leaners – we want our teachers to craft a curriculum that is carefully sequenced and progressive so our children can understand the importance of connections in learning. We want our learners to be brave, and not over faced by challenge or new experiences. We want our learners to have the skills to problem solve and the resilience to try again. We want our curriculum to be anchored by vocabulary and bridged by repeated encounters so that our children can be confident in their knowledge and understanding to expand and develop concepts. Our children will leave us with the skills they need to thrive in the next stage of their learning

 

Be IMMERSIVE – we want our children’s time at Bickerton to be filled with new experiences that spark their curiosity, motivate them to reach their full potential, ensure learning is ‘sticky’ and instil in them a life-long love of learning. We understand the need for our curriculum to fully immerse our children. Our children need to feel and experience learning in a variety of ways. Our broad and ambitious curriculum will embrace learning outside the classroom, and will recognise the importance of cultural capital in preparing our children for life and learning beyond our school. All staff at Bickerton will encourage our children to be brave as they journey through our curriculum, ensuring the benefit from every opportunity.

 

Value Diveristy - our curriculum will look beyond our school to our local community and will encourage children to see themselves as part of the wider national and global community. They will learn from other countries, faiths and cultures and we will celebrate differences while recognising that all life on Earth is precious. Our children will understand they have the power to affect change through courageous advocacy and both ask and answer Big Questions.

 

Develop ENQURIRING MINDS – our curriculum encourages and supports our children to have enquiring minds today and tomorrow. Our curriculum poses enquiry and teaches our children the benefits of having enquiring ideas. Our curriculum design emphasises the need to make links between areas of learning, developing transferable skills – being organised, critical thinking, problem solving. Through enquiry, our children collobarate and learn to reflect, finding ways to share their porgress with others. Our teachers encourage our children to think about the “why” in our curriculum. We talk about ripples of significance which draws out key knowledge and connections. We want our children to foster this approach to ensure depth and breadth within learning.

 

IMPLEMENTATION

At Bickerton, due to our five class structure, we have rolling curriculum across Key Stages 1 and 2 foundation subjects. Our long-term planning based upon clear year group endpoints which ensure progression within mixed year group classes.

We teach our core subjects in year groups to allow for smaller classes centered around year group objectives.

We believe that people learn best in different ways. At our school we provide a varied learning environment that has breadth and balance and allows individual children to develop their skills and abilities and reach their full potential, finding their champion within.

Effective learning           

We know that people learn in many different ways and we recognise the need to develop strategies that allow all children to learn in ways that best suit them.

We provide opportunities for children to learn in different ways. These include:

  • investigating;
  • problem solving and reasoning;
  • researching and finding out;
  • group work;
  • pair work;
  • collaborative work;
  • independent work;
  • whole-class work;
  • asking and answering questions;
  • the use of computers, including multimedia resources;
  • fieldwork and educational visits;
  • the use of the creative arts;
  • the use of our outdoor spaces, both our school and local environment;
  • debates, role plays and oral presentations;
  • designing and making products;
  • participation in athletic or physical activity and performances.

 

IMPACT

Our aim is that all our children:

  • meet their full potential and be the best they can be;
  • become confident, resourceful, enquiring and independent learners;
  • sustain a thirst for knowledge that carries through to later life;
  • use their imagination, be creative and be curious within their learning and later life;
  • build positive relationships with other people;
  • develop self-respect and respect the ideas, attitudes, values and feelings of others;
  • show respect for all cultures and religions and, in so doing, promote positive attitudes towards other people;
  • understand their local and British community and help them feel valued as part of these communities;
  • engage in fundamental British values;
  • grow into reliable, independent and positive British citizens.