Here at Abbots Ripton Church of England Primary School we are committed to planning and delivering an exciting and stimulating broad based curriculum for all our pupils. Our school vision is core to developing our curriculum as it focuses on all children, 'learning for life and achieving their best whilst growing in faith'. This vision is woven into everything that we do with our children, through well structured lessons and learning experiences, which lead to confident, curious and enthusiastic learners who are well prepared for secondary education and the changing pace and challenges of modern life.
Our Curriculum Journey
Over the past few years we have invested a great deal of time into planning our curriculum; in some subjects we have purchased schemes and in others we have developed our own. In some subjects we have trialed purchased schemes but following our evaluation and review we have decided to personalise these to make them a better fit for our school.
Here at Abbots Ripton we believe that there will always be areas of our curriculum that we want to improve through refinement. As Andrew Percival says, 'we need to create a curriculum culture in schools' which means we see the curriculum as a living, breathing process which can always be improved'.
As a small school, many teachers take on several subject leader roles and much of our curriculum has been developed collaboratively as a teaching team or in smaller teams. We have made effective use of national professional associations for both support and professional development including the Historical Association and Geographical Society as well as local support including the Hunts School's Sports Partnership, Maths Hub, English Hub and Computing Hub.
Together as a staff we developed our overall curriculum aims, how we plan to implement this and how we assess the impact of this (below). From this, we have developed each subject area; some areas are further developed than others and we will continue this development as we strive to deliver the very best curriculum for our children.
Our Curriculum Aims (Intent)
- For all children to attain a high standard of skills, knowledge and understanding within the subjects of reading, writing and mathematics.
- For all children to develop and sustain a thirst for learning which enables them to have aspirations beyond their experiences.
- For all children to leave our school with the confidence that comes with possessing a store of essential knowledge and the skills to use it.
- For all children to understand that opportunities to acquire new knowledge and new skills are exciting and highly motivational.
- For all children to be physically literate.
Our Curriculum Implementation
- To provide a balance of teaching of explicit skills in English and maths, and opportunities to use, apply and develop these across a wide range of curriculum subjects.
- To ensure that Christian and British values are an integral driver for developing our learners.
- To plan adequate time and opportunities for children to practise and embed their knowledge, understanding and skills securely.
- To have a curriculum which goes beyond the expectations in the national curriculum and provides opportunities for children to develop further knowledge and be able to direct their learning according to their own interests.
Our Curriculum Impact
- Children will have highly developed learning behaviours due to their desire to develop their knowledge and understanding and learn new concepts.
- Children behave well because our curriculum enables them to develop a desire to actively engage in their learning.
- Children will make connections between their learning in different subjects so that knowledge and skills can be applied to ensure a depth of understanding.