Curriculum

CURRICULUM INTENT

Our promise is to provide our children with a nurturing and engaging environment, within a community that breeds a love of learning for all, leading to resilient, self-motivated, proud and successful learners who achieve and are confidently prepared for their future.

 

We have planned a curriculum that is broad and balanced and offers pupils opportunities to grow as individuals as well as learners.  Our curriculum, by its design, enables pupils to know more, understand more and remember more so that they can do more by having meaningful conversations, critically analysing and expressing views and feelings independently.

 

We believe the foundation for academic success lies in the ability to read.  All children when they start in Foundation Stage will be thought of as readers and will access outstanding provision in phonics and other reading strategies.  Children requiring support will be given this immediately to ensure that they are as equally prepared as their peers.  Our intent is to liberate all children from potential barriers to give them the confidence and self-esteem to feel positive about their futures regardless of other factors.

 

Our curriculum promotes respect for the views of each individual child, as well as for people of all cultures. We value the spiritual and moral development of each person, as well as their intellectual and physical growth. We organise our curriculum so that we promote co-operation and understanding between all members of our community. We are fortunate at Monks Risborough to have a spacious learning environment. This is respected and used by all in school and we will, through our curriculum, teach respect for our world and how we should care for it for future generations, as well as our own.

 

At Monks Risborough CE our Christian school values (Love, Community, Respect, Generosity, Friendship, Perseverance, Thankfulness and Responsibility),underpin our curriculum and permeate all areas of school life. Teaching all subjects through our values helps the children to embed these values in their everyday lives. 

 

At Monks Risborough CE School we strive to enjoy our learning and make it as much fun and as meaningful and relevant as possible. We offer children an excellent education in a safe, calm, creative, inclusive and stimulating environment. Every child is valued as an individual; we aim to nurture well-rounded, respectful and confident children who will develop skills for life-long learning. We nurture our children on their journey and encourage them to be creative, unique, open-minded and independent individuals, respectful of themselves and of others in our school, our local community and the wider world. 

We take our responsibility to prepare children for life in modern Britain very seriously and ensure that the fundamental British Values are introduced, discussed and lived out through the ethos and work of our school.

 

CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION 

Our curriculum is delivered using a thematic approach. A new topic is launched every half term with an exciting hook that will capture the children’s interest. Each topic is launched with a question linked to our Christian school values e.g. How can we respect our ‘Wonderful World’? Did the Vikings behave responsibly? Each topic will be supported by a text that will be used in whole class guided reading and as a stimulus for writing. The texts have been carefully chosen so that children are exposed to a variety of high quality texts that will inspire and engage them.  

 

Monks Risborough uses a variety of approaches and resources depending on the nature of the subject being taught and the needs of the children. For specific details about individual subjects please see the relevant policy.

 

We know children learn best when it is meaningful to them. Making learning personal allows all children to be ambitious and succeed.  This is achieved by providing inspirational teaching throughout the curriculum based on a spaced learning and concept-led approach.  By using a variety of research proven techniques, we intend to keep pupils engaged with learning and accommodate pupils who learn differently to their peers. It is important to note that any interventions are evidence based and required to supplement the work of the teacher and do not replace it. 

 

In line with the Equality Act 2010, we promote equal opportunities to all of our pupils throughout our practices. Every child is recognised as a unique individual. We believe that childhood should be a happy, investigative and enquiring time in our lives, where there are no limits to curiosity and there is a thirst for new experiences and knowledge.  We use our Church School Values (Respect, Responsibility, Friendship, Thankfulness, Generosity, Perseverance, Community and Love) to further promote positive attitudes to learning and leading a successful, meaningful life. 

 

Engaging with the wider community, providing wide-ranging opportunities and a positive growth mind-set to well-being are the integral drivers of our curriculum.  This shows pupils the value of being involved in their community and establishes a link between the theories they learn in the classroom to practical examples in real life.  By meeting successful authors, musicians, artists, historians and sports people (for example) from our community and beyond, will inspire the children to believe they too can achieve in any field they choose if they have a growth mindset.

 

The Curriculum is mapped against long term plans to ensure there are no gaps in our coverage.  We have mapped progression of skills and constructed knowledge organisers so that children have the skills to improve and the knowledge to solve problems.  A combination of learning techniques brings the learning to life so that pupils enjoy learning and are prepared for life beyond our school.  We recognise that pupils should be challenged in their development, learning from failures and celebrating successes. 

 

At Monks Risborough, we promote Growth Mindset throughout the school. We teach the children about the qualities needed to be a successful learner using our own Monks Mindset Heroes –Tilly and Timmy Teamwork, Curious Cara, Reflective Roxy, Creative Cody, Independent Ivan and the Power of Yet. 

 

Our cross-curricular approach to learning provides children with varied opportunities to extend their learning and develop skills outside the strict timetabling of each subject. For example, an English lessons may have a History focus and this can be seen from our curriculum overviews which are available on the school website.  We also enrich our pupils’ lives by offering a variety of non-statutory extra-curricular experiences such as clubs, visits, visiting speakers and sporting events. Children in Key Stage Two take part in two residential –one in Year 3 and 4 to Shortenills and one in Year 5 or 6 to Calshot. In addition, we seek to enhance our pupils’ learning through developing positive two-way relationships with our local community. 

 

CURRICULUM IMPACT

At Monks Risborough, we offer a curriculum which empowers all pupils to: 

Quality of education

• Enjoy learning by making it meaningful to them
• Be creative, independent learners
• Be given significant time to learn new skills and have time to practise those skills 
• Evaluate and assess their own learning so they know what their strengths are and which areas they need to develop 
• Challenge themselves and engage themselves in learning at greater depth 

Behaviour and Attitudes 

• Be successful lifelong learners who demonstrate resilience and persevere at tasks
• Develop their critical thinking so they make informed choices based on acquired knowledge
• Understand and value the importance of our eight core Christian values and how these relate to everyday life
• Nurture positive relationships promoting working cooperatively with one another and mutual respect
• Help children understand Britain’s cultural heritage
• Explore their spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development

Personal Development

• Feel successful in their learning and to promote a balanced self-esteem
• Have the flexibility to decide how best to learn in different situations and to decide what they are going to learn and how
• Be given the opportunity to decide upon the final outcome of their learning
• Can set their own targets for future improvement

What does your child learn at school each day? Find information about our curriculum subjects here.

Assessing and tracking children's learning

 

We track our children's progress using a system called Target Tracker.

 

Within this system, children are expected to make 6 steps of progress each year which enables us to monitor whether they are on track to be ready for the next stage of their education.  We will implement interventions if it looks they are not on track.  Children's progress is rarely on  straight trajectory and we will always look at earlier progress too. 

 

The 6 steps are:

 

b   - beginning the year's objectives

b+ - working within the year group's objectives

w   - working towards the expected standard for the year group

w+ - close to but at risk of not reaching the expected standard

s    - working securely at the expected standard

s+  - working at greater depth within the year group's expectations

 

Each letter will be preceded by a number for the year group the child is in.