Making A Difference
In our small, rural, church school, we aim to create a vibrant community of happy, confident, lifelong learners, guided by our core Christian values, who are outward looking and believe they can make a difference in our world, now and in the future.
Through our broad and ever-evolving curriculum, we aim to enthuse and excite our learners while enabling them to be ready to embrace challenge. We are driven by a desire for our children to have a deep curiosity about the world and an awareness of the possibilities open to them in their future lives. We encourage children to be resilient, independent learners (see BEN Skills) who have the courage and confidence to be creative and imaginative and inspire our children to develop a deep love for learning.
We are committed to supporting our children to be outward facing, global citizens, who know that they can learn from other cultures and communities and who recognise similarity as well as difference. And we want them to know that they can make a difference in the world – and to be driven to do so.
We follow The Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum and The National Curriculum 2014 and further developed an exciting and bespoke curriculum, based on the Chris Quigley Essentials Curriculum that drives the aims and values of our school and serves the needs of all our children and families; supporting our children to take responsibility for progressing on their personal learning journeys and seizing opportunities to enrich their experiences.
Through quality teaching of knowledge, skills and vocabulary, we draw the content for each term of work for all subjects, other than maths and literacy, from the ‘Chris Quigley Essentials’ arrangement of the National Curriculum, which works within ‘milestones’ of learning for our mixed year group classes. The table below sets out how this is organised:
| Oak Tree Class | Willow Class | Rowan Class | Sycamore Class |
| EYFS | Year 1 & 2 | Year 3 & 4 | Year 5 & 6 |
| Early Learning Goals | Milestone 1 | Milestone 2 | Milestone 3 |
Our curriculum is drawn from broad topic drivers for each term. It delivers carefully sequenced learning, building on prior knowledge and providing many opportunities to revisit knowledge to ensure a deeper understanding every time.
The curriculum map covers all concept thresholds on a two-year cycle. Each time the concept is revisited, it builds on existing knowledge and an enquiry led approach supports children learning to ask deep questions and to become deep thinkers.
We continually assess children’s progress in each subject, including their personal development and learning behaviours by reviewing the depth of their understanding using the Chris Quigley milestones. In KS1, children will be assessed on the concepts contained in Milestone 1. In LKS2, children will be assessed on the concepts contained in Milestone 2 and finally, in UKS2, children will be assessed on Milestone 3.
Whether being Historians or being ‘Imagineers’, our curriculum enables children to make links. For example, in KS2 we teach children what was happening around the world at the same time, before and after the Romans, not just knowledge of Roman facts; in KS1, we use our history study of Grace Darling, to link to the history of lighthouses and the geography of oceans and seas around the UK. This roots children’s understanding and gives them a deeper and broader knowledge of the world.
We are proud of our curriculum and the journey of reflection and refinement that helps us to keep it current and relevant for our children and our community.
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