Curriculum
Vision Statement
Let your light shine.
Access and ambition for all to enjoy life in all its fullness.
Foundational Scripture
Matthew 5: 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Our school values of friendship, thankfulness, hope, unity, compassion, forgiveness, justice, endurance and trust are rooted in the Sermon on the Mount and are the basis of all relationships, decisions and direction of our school.
School Values
Our school values are at the heart of our planned curriculum. We aim to provide high quality learning opportunities which help foster these values within children. Our values are
Friendship
Thankfulness
Hope
Unity
Compassion
Forgiveness
Justice
Endurance
Trust
Intent
At Hoole CE Primary School, we have designed our curriculum with pupils’ learning at the centre. We recognise that a curriculum has to be broad, balanced and offer pupils opportunities to grow as individuals as well as learners. We want our children to ‘shine’, to celebrate and develop the characteristics, skills and gifts that are within them, not only to achieve well, but to positively impact the world around them.
Through our curriculum, we aim to help children become
- Enthusiastic, curious, independent thinkers– motivated, reflective and resilient learners who persevere when faced with challenges and who celebrate their achievements and those of their friends;
- Respectful, compassionate and kind friendswho are able to work with others, forgive, trust, support and communicate with others;
- Confident, thankful individualswho understand their own worth; how to stay safe and healthy and how to manage feelings and relationships;
- Tolerant and responsible citizenswho show respect for others, and a commitment to appreciate and contribute positively to the world around them.
All learning activities are planned with these outcomes in mind and children are encouraged to reflect on how their learning has helped them achieve these outcomes.
In addition to this, we offer a wide range of extra-curricular opportunities for the children to develop skills and learn new ones as well as to build relationships with one another and learn skills for life beyond school.
Aims
Our whole school curriculum is planned and delivered through our BEAMS approach. In order that all learners grow and reach their full potential, we want our curriculum to:
Encourage all members of our school family to be Brave to try new things, or to challenge themselves to do something differently. We want to develop curiosity and interests to that we are able to grow. We want to encourage a climate where mistakes are seen as opportunities for growth.
Be Engaging, both in terms of learning things that are exciting and grab our attention and interest, but also engaging in that we connect with the world around us, and further afield. We recognise the uniqueness of each child and the truth that God works through people so we want our curriculum to ensure children connect with the world around them. This also involves making use of technology to teach and to support children in accessing a rich curriculum.
Be Ambitious. We want all our children to shine their lights, to discover their light within them and to take pride in letting it shine. We know that all children deserve the best education and plan lessons so that all children can access key learning. Our curriculum is structured in such a way that all children can access learning and experience success. We plan different learning opportunities for children including scaffolded tasks to support, and open-ended questions to apply learning in different contexts. Each subject has a clearly defined bank of knowledge and skills that the children need to know, remember and apply in different contexts.
Be Memorable. We aim to provide meaningful, memorable learning opportunities that children want to celebrate and talk about in the future. We are committed to capitalising on the opportunities offered not only by our school grounds, but also our local area and city to enhance learning. We plan a wide range of visits, visitors and learning experiences for the children to make their learning memorable. We also introduce children to a wide range of people who either have reflected our school values by their lives or who have made a significant contribution to the subjects children are learning about.
Nurture Spirituality. Led by our Christian values we aim to nurture the whole child by developing their social, moral, spiritual and cultural well-being. We recognise spirituality as being part of something bigger than ourselves, but also that we are more than what we say, do or feel. In designing our curriculum, each subject seeks to ensure that not only do children learn the key knowledge, but that we provide opportunities for children to develop their understanding of our values within these subjects and their attitudes towards them.
As a result of the aims of our curriculum outlined above, children will
- Learn how to lead safe, healthy and fulfilling lives.
- Understand that failure is part of the road to success.
- Be recognised for academic successes.
- Be supported with their next stages in education and feeling prepared for life after school.
- Be responsible individuals who contribute to community living and the environment.
- Achieve to the best of their ability.
- Acquire a wealth of knowledge and experience.
- Be critical thinkers.
- Find a sense of belonging to the school and its community.
- Learn how to cooperate with their peers and respect one another inside and outside the classroom.
Supporting children to shine as readers
We place the highest priority on children becoming confident and engaged readers as quickly as possible. Positive reading skills enable children to become active partners in their learning with the ability to access the wider curriculum with confidence.
We use the Little Wandle phonics programme to build early phonics and reading. Our staff are well-skilled in ensuring that children acquire reading skills working in partnership with parents and carers.
Where pupils require additional support to build their skills, our response is swift and effective with group activities and one to one support to help all children to extend their skills and shine as readers.
Our well stocked library and array of phonically decodable reading materials ensure that children are able to apply and extend their skills in a confident and engaged way.
Supporting children to shine as writers
Our teaching of writing is based on the Literacy Pathways approach. This approach is based around interesting and engaging texts which children respond positively to. Many of these texts link to the children’s studies in the wider curriculum and so reinforce learning in subject such as History and Geography.
The Literacy Pathways approach provides a framework with clear expectations for learning for each year group. This ensures that children acquire skills in a sequential and progressive way, building on solid foundations as they progress through school.
Spelling is taught using the Pathways to Spell programme. Again, this ensures that learning enables children to consolidate and apply prior knowledge whilst building new skills in a progressive manner.
Handwriting skills are built from Reception using the Teach Handwriting programme. This ensures that children develop effective motor skills to learn letter shapes and formations. From this, children progress to joining letters to ensure that their handwriting becomes fluent, legible and well-joined.
Supporting children to shine as mathematicians
Our Mathematics curriculum is organised in accordance with First4Maths planning approaches. This ensure that children have an array of opportunities to apply and extend their skills sequentially and progressively.
We aim to ensure that children are well prepared for the next stage of their educational journey as fluent, confident and resilient mathematicians.
Once children have mastered key concepts and operations in Maths, they apply their learning in problem solving contexts. This enables children to see how their learning links to real life situations and gives them confidence to use their skills every day, both within school and beyond.
We place great importance on pupils developing a strong recall of their multiplication facts. This supports so many areas of Mathematics and having increased fluency in this area really boosts children’s confidence. We build skills with multiplication tables with activities including daily practice, Times Tables Rockstars and even through drama and music!
Religious Education at Hoole
In line with our Christian ethos and our church school status, we use the locally agreed Cheshire Scheme of Work to teach Religious Education.
Our school family is diverse and we have pupils with a range of religions and some families who do not follow any religion. Through our Religious Education, we seek to ensure that children acquire an understanding of other world faiths and world views in addition to Christianity. This ensures that pupils build the knowledge and character to contribute to the world around them as tolerant and responsible citizens.
Supporting children to shine across the wider curriculum
We use the National Curriculum as our starting point for teaching the Foundation Subjects and Science. In order to harness the power of connections and to help deepen learning, where appropriate, we link units of work to our English texts. Each subject has a curriculum route map which outlines the units of work children will complete during each year and from this, there are subject overviews which detail the key knowledge and vocabulary that the children will learn during that unit as well as the prior learning that forms the foundation of that unit of work. From this, teachers plan sequences of lessons that deliver the key knowledge identified.
We strive to make the curriculum as meaningful and memorable as possible for our children so look to enrich our curriculum through visits and through visitors we invite to school. We have strong connections with many organisations in the local area and see these connections as powerful mechanisms for supporting learning as well as opportunities for our children to shine more widely.
PSHE
As a school, we use the SCARF program to teach the PSHE curriculum. This is a whole school approach to health and wellbeing that is used from Reception to Year 6. Our Sex and Relationships Education is based on the Christopher Winter scheme. Details of what is covered each term is on the PSHE page in Extra Curricular and Wellbeing.