Our aim is to give children the best opportunity to make excellent progress by providing them with the highest quality teaching and learning and access to a  wide-ranging, stimulating curriculum that is dynamic, personalised, innovative and is designed to meet individual needs and to maximise academic progress. 

Our curriculum is constructed to ensure all pupils are equipped with the skills, essential knowledge and attitudes to learning required to be effective learners both at school and in their future lives.

Our curriculum is designed to ensure our pupils gain the opportunity to develop 4 core, defining principles:

  • Inspiration
  • Excellence
  • Collaboration
  • Empathy

Inspiration

Our curriculum is designed to make learning fun and develop a buzz and enthusiasm for learning that inspires and motivates our children. Our curriculum gives our children the opportunity to develop creativity and enjoy trying new things.

  • We use hooks for learning to bring subjects to life! Mr Innes recently enacted a mummification in Y3! This was a fabulous example of bringing learning to life and the video can be seen here 
  • In Talk 4 Writing, units always start with a ‘hook for learning’. This always interests and inspires our children. This was clearly evident when a stone giant visited school – check it out here and here 
  • We use technology effectively to enable children to engage in their learning, this was particularly evident when children used green screen technology to transport themselves using a futuristic portal! Watch the video here
  • We bring learning to life in History! The children in Y2 recently built the walls of a Tudor house using a wattle and daub method, check out the photos here. We believe these hands on exciting opportunities develop a love of learning

Excellence

We have high expectations in everything we do. Our curriculum is aspirational and goes beyond the knowledge, skills and understanding that is set out in the National Curriculum to enable our children to flourish, reach and exceed their potential academically, physically and artistically.

  • Within Art our children study 3 artists/styles over the course of the academic year. The units build on artistic skills which result in a final piece which we then display in our whole school gallery – you can see some of our recent work here 
  • In Computing, our ambitious curriculum enables our children to access and create high quality work. In Y2 children have recently created their own animation, (take a look here) and our Y4 children will have the opportunity to use a 3D printer later in the year. 
  • Over the last 2 years we have significantly improved the presentation of pupil work. We now have a ‘Stobhillgate Standard’ which makes our expectation very clear. Our children take real pride in the presentation of their work. This has gone hand-in-hand with the introduction of the ‘Letter-Join’ handwriting scheme which has had a significant impact on handwriting across school.

Collaboration

We plan opportunities for our children to work collaboratively in order to become effective team players.  We ensure our children have a good understanding of rights and responsibilities to ensure they become well-rounded citizens within their communities.

  • Our PSHE curriculum has planned opportunities to enable our children to develop teamwork skills, this can be evidenced here
  • We provide our children with opportunities to work with others beyond our school. Our Y4 children recently collaborated with the Y4 pupils at Abbeyfields First School as part of a local history project – take a look here for more information
  • We try to make science as active and hands on as possible! This provides lots of opportunities to work collaboratively. Y4 recently worked in teams to measure the length of the digestive system 
  • We incorporate practical, collaborative tasks into humanities lessons. This allows our children the chance to develop their knowledge by having to explain and reason with others. This was evident when Y3 children enhanced their historical knowledge by building an Eygptian Shaduf – check out their efforts here
  • Forest school is well planned to enable children to develop teamwork skills

Empathy

Our curriculum is carefully planned to enable our children to give serious thought and consideration to the feeling and emotions of others.  Our curriculum has been constructed to include famous people and events that really make our children think about the emotions that people would have experienced. This enables us to develop kindness, compassion, respect and enables our children to value diversity.

  • We are working in collaboration with schools in Zambia and have donated our unwanted uniform. We recently spoke to them on Zoom, check out the video here 
  • Our Assembly schedule is well planned to enable our children to think about the importance of thinking about others – here is an example
  • We value the importance of Anti-bullying and always take part in National Anti-Bullying Week
  • Harvest Assembly provides a brilliant opportunity to think about others, as we make our annual donation to the Wansbeck Food Bank; you can watch our most recent Harvest assembly here

Curriculum Impact

The impact of our curriculum is measured in terms of the extent to which pupils have developed new knowledge, understanding and skills and that they can use and recall this with fluency.  

We believe the impact of our curriculum can be measured in numerous ways including:

  • Outcomes in Phonic Screening check and KS1 SATs. 
  • Pre/Post assessments
  • Low Stakes quizzes 
  • In school attainment tracking of both core and foundation subjects 
  • Attendance data
  • Behaviour Logs
  • Engagement in enrichment activities
  • Route to Resilience activities
  • Pupil voice – questionnaires, pupil book reviews
  • Subject Leader monitoring – Lesson visits, scrutiny of books, assessment, pupil interviews and questionnaires 
  • Governor monitoring