Our Curriculum

Our Curriculum Intent

At Stourfield Infant School, our vision is to offer a world class curriculum which develops the whole child in an inclusive and engaging learning environment.  We have high expectations of progress and outcomes in all areas for all of our children, regardless of their starting points.  

We help our young children to become confident, independent and happy learners. We aim to help each child to grow academically, emotionally, physically and socially during these important foundation years of their education.

 

Our ambitious curriculum offer will:

• Provide a broad and balanced curriculum which will equip all our children with the necessary knowledge, skills and understanding for the next stage of their education and in life.

 

• Promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of all our pupils.

 

• Give opportunities for a variety of meaningful and relevant learning experiences so that knowledge, skills and understanding can be applied in different contexts.

 

• Provide a language-rich learning environment which develops spoken language, vocabulary and listening skills.

 

• Help our children to foster a love for reading and to be able to read fluently by the end of Key Stage One.

 

• Allow children to learn through play and exploration.  Our curriculum gives our children opportunities for active learning experiences - both inside and outside. 

 

• Give our young children an awareness of self-identity and place, starting with themselves, their families and our school.  They will develop an understanding of where they live both within the local area and the wider world. 

 

We see our curriculum as a body of knowledge which is subject-specific as defined by us and the National Curriculum.  Our high quality planning provides a sequential and progressive curriculum for our children so that it will help them to know more and to remember more.  We meet the needs of our learners by providing models, scaffolding and challenge in all subjects. 

At Stourfield Infant School we teach the children essential knowledge, skills and behaviours.  Through repeated practice, this knowledge is then embedded in the long term memory and then allows for deeper understanding.  This allows for rapid recall and application when faced with new learning.

Across all subjects and ages, our knowledge of pedagogy and use of high quality planning and resourcing will stimulate curiosity, passion and enjoyment.

We plan using our Twynham Learning intent, which incorporates the three curriculum cornerstones:

 

1. Informed thinking - Lesson sequences based on high quality texts and books
    
2. Community Linked – Trips, visits and experiences that enhance our pupils’ community-mindedness and understanding
    
3. Outward Looking - Lessons that encourage outward-looking minds with a global perspective

 

Our Values

We want our children to make good choices and accept responsibility for what they do by using the Golden Rules and following our values of Respecting, Collaborating and Aspiring. 

 

Our values underpin everything we do:

• We teach the children to treat others as they wish to be treated and this is the core belief around this learning behaviour. This is mirrored in the way they speak to adults and adults speak to them. We want children to believe it is acceptable to think differently.  This value includes inclusivity, equality and diversity, tolerance, being polite and having good manners. 

 

• We teach the children how to work together by sharing, taking turns and helping each other.We teach them how to listen to each other and to explain their ideas and thinking. This learning behaviour focuses on helping the children to develop their social skills and their speaking and listening skills in different contexts and learning situations.They also gain an understanding of how our school is part of a community (and wider world) and how we work together to help each other.

 

• We teach the children to try their best at all times.This learning behaviour and attitude is about resilience and perseverance.We teach the children that making mistakes allows us to learn. We encourage a curiosity about the world around them.We help the children to know their next steps and how to get better in all areas of learning through practice.We want our children to be proud of their learning and achievements.

 

Experiences

At Stourfield Infant School, we plan for a range of events, visitors and experiences which will help children to develop their cultural capital.  These include AFC Bournemouth, Rock Steady music, visits to our local allotments and marking national events such as NSPCC number day.

Cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviours and skills that a child can draw upon and which demonstrates their cultural awareness, knowledge and competence; it is one of the key ingredients a pupil will draw upon to be successful in society, their career and the world of work.