Overarching curriculum statement
At Shillington and Stondon Lower Schools, our Curriculum is grounded in our values, our school rules and our growth mindset principles along with the six underlying curriculum drivers which we believe are particularly relevant to our schools and our community.
Our ethos and values
We want our children to grow up to be independent learners: Our curriculum supports this through providing opportunities for children to take responsibility for their learning and to support others.
We want our children to feel safe and nurtured: Our offer at both schools’ is focused on supporting children’s mental health and well being and for children to know how to look after themselves and keep themselves mentally and physically safe.
We want our children to know, understand and use their values: Values are central to our behaviours and ethos in school. They underpin our expectation of pupils and staff behaviours and are central to what we aim to achieve in school. We want our children to be good citizens, know and understand values and British Values and take pride in this aspect.
We want our children to be respectful and inclusive: We aspire for our children to be inquisitive and caring about their community and the wider environment. From the very beginning, we are modelling how an inquisitive mind and learning are intrinsically linked. Children are curious about their environment and our curriculum enables them to compare and contrast their lives and experiences to others and to understand and accept. We pride ourselves on knowing and valuing the children in our school as individuals. We teach children to demonstrate respect for each other and accept similarities and differences whatever they are.
We want our children to be curious, adventurous learners: Whilst keeping safe, we support our children to take risks in their learning, and take pride in doing their very best. We encourage children to “be safe, use their values and be the best you can be”. Our curriculum enables children to set their own challenges and measure their own progress. Through our embedded growth mindset ethos, we teach children to recognise the value of making and learning from mistakes and to build resilience in learning. While recognising and celebrating both effort and outcomes we encourage children to find their own intrinsic motivation for trying hard and achieving well.
Our Curriculum drivers
Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural awareness (SMSC): We want children to develop an understanding of Christian values as well as human and British values and how they are relevant in today’s world. As well as providing opportunities for collective worship and reflection, we encourage children to consider how their personal thoughts and experiences connect them to others and to the world as a whole and ultimately to gain a greater understanding of themselves.
Growth mindset: Our curriculum provides opportunities for every child to take increasing responsibility for their learning, their behaviour, their attitudes and their safety. We teach the children how to tackle and solve problems and to value making mistakes as these are learning opportunities.
Promoting diversity: We teach children how to keep be themselves in a changing world and to develop strategies to maintain good mental health. We encourage children to use their voice to bring about change and to develop a greater awareness of the challenges others face in life and how they, as individuals, can support causes and make a difference in our school community, local community and further afield.
Developing independence: Our growth mindset ethos and principles underpin our curriculum at every point. Children will and should expect challenge and be expected to find work challenging at whatever level they are. This we believe, will lead to children developing independence as learners.
5 ways to wellbeing: This is the personal agenda which looks after and teaches each individual to look after themselves. It teaches skills for doing this, encouraging children to: to connect, be active, giving to others, take notice and to reflect. Each year we explore with children how they can fulfil this.
The environment. We want our children to understand how their actions and behaviours can influence the world around them. We want them to appreciate and understand how we can learn from the natural world. We teach them about the key environmental issues in the world today and encourage them to question and debate in order to gain a deeper understanding.
Phonics, Reading and Maths
Phonics is taught mainly through Essential Letter and Sounds but is currently supplemented by other resources. It is our intention during the year 2022/2023 to move towards this ELS and assess the need and usefulness of other strategies.
Reading is taught and developed through a variety of different resources and reading scheme books. Following the purchase of a new phonics scheme, our provision of reading material will be reviewed in light of ELS.
Maths is taught in line with the mastery programme, using White Rose and Power Maths resources to support this. As appropriate other materials are used to enhance, support and extend children’s learning.