Our Curriculum

Vision

At Parsloes Primary School, we believe in an enriched and progressive curriculum that is engaging for all. The children and their learning are at the core of all that we do. Our curriculum is designed to take into consideration our children’s varied backgrounds and cultural experiences. We believe all children deserve a curriculum that expands their life chances, enabling social equity and mobility. All pupils are entitled to have access to a broad range of learning experiences which allow them to develop the knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes necessary to prepare them for and to help them succeed as members of the wider community.

Curriculum Intent

At Parsloes, our curriculum is built around …

• Language Acquisition
• Empowering Experiences
• Active and Hands on Learning
• Relevance to our Diverse Community
• New Knowledge and Skills

We ensure children receive a broad and balanced curriculum and ensure learning is relevant, exciting, aspirational and challenging. All National Curriculum subjects within the Curriculum are viewed as being equally important; but underpinned by the understanding that basic literacy and numeracy competency is vital in all learning.

Our curriculum is language rich with reading at the heart of it. It is based upon our core values and promotes positive emotional and physical health and provides experiences and opportunities that broaden children’s cultural capital and supports the mindset that they can achieve anything.

When planning the curriculum, our teachers always take into consideration children’s prior learning, they provide first-hand experiences, allowing the children to develop interpersonal skills, build resilience and become creative, critical thinkers.

We understand that a child’s ability to learn is based on gaining knowledge & building on learned knowledge; as well as the ability to use and apply any associated skills adeptly and competently. Our curriculum is designed to marry these key components to ensure progress and a greater depth of understanding that leads to sustained mastery.

Curriculum Implementation

National requirements and school requirements are mapped out as a whole school by subject leaders, and then individual year groups plan the curriculum for their pupils accordingly:

• Where possible, teachers organise each half term’s learning under a ’theme’. They plan lessons to ensure the children make connections across a variety of subjects.
• The curriculum is planned thoroughly, starting with the children’s current knowledge and skills, so that real progress can be made and measured.
• Each term there are a variety of visits and visitors planned in each year group to enrich the learning and create lasting memories via real experiences – Planetarium visit, African Drumming workshops, Story-Telling workshops etc.
• Each theme starts with an Entry Point and Knowledge Harvest, where children’s prior knowledge is assessed at the outset of the theme and learning planned accordingly. All themes then finish with an Exit Point that celebrates learning.

The curriculum is reinforced by the school’s Core Values.  These are taught on their own and through other areas of the curriculum, including assemblies. The spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of our pupils and their understanding of British Values and the core values of our society are woven through the curriculum.

To enrich and develop children’s learning further, Theme days and weeks, whole school activities and opportunities for educational visits and visitors have been built into our curriculum maps. After school enrichment clubs and events extend these opportunities further and specialist teachers support the teaching of Music, PE and Spanish.

Inspired by the National Trust and to support our children’s character education, the school is committed to a list of activities titled ’50 things to do before you’re 11 ¾’. We have produced our own Parsloes list of 50 things for our children to do during their time with us here from nursery through to secondary school. The list comprises 50 enrichment activities that we believe will support our children’s character education, giving them opportunity to practise and reflect upon our core values. These activities are linked to or constitute authentic outcomes within our curriculum.

50 Things to do Before I Leave Parsloes Primary School

To support learning at home, curriculum maps are sent out to families at the beginning of each topic, to provide parents/carers with information about the learning ahead. Parents and carers are invited into school regularly for Parent Workshops, Stay and Share sessions, Entry and Exit points, Whole School Assemblies and Open Evenings. The school also subscribes to a number of online Apps and Programmes, including Times Table Rock Stars and Bug Club. These resources for learning can be accessed from home and support the learning of basic skills.

Curriculum Impact

We measure the impact of our curriculum through:

• Annual tracking of standards across the curriculum
• Reflecting on the standards achieved against planned outcomes.
• Celebrating the learning at the end of each topic, where children demonstrate the knowledge they have gained
• Sampling children’s learning across the school, where they demonstrate learning
• Pupil discussions with teachers and Senior Leaders about their learning