The Curriculum at Highlands

Our curriculum at Highlands Primary is broad, well-planned and ambitious, with a clear focus on the acquisition of basic skills.

Our coherently planned and well-sequenced curriculum equips all pupils with the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in the next stage of their school-life and ultimately in later life. Teachers follow agreed plans, as defined in the National Curriculum and beyond, and teach all subjects in a rigorous and sequential way. As a result, pupils learn subject content well and make good progress by showing that they know more and can remember more.

In all subjects, teachers carefully consider how to build on pupils’ prior learning when planning sequences of lessons. They have a good understanding of curriculum end points both within and beyond their classroom, and as a result are able to set clearly defined curricular goals.

Our curriculum at Highlands is divided into discrete subject areas, although some natural links are evident throughout. High quality texts are used to develop literacy skills as well as to provide an engaging context for enhancing the teaching of other curriculum subjects. We firmly believe our children need to be given the opportunity to apply their reading, writing and mathematical skills across a range of contexts and our curriculum allows for this to happen.

In addition to more formal learning opportunities in the classroom, our curriculum exposes children to a wide-range of rich, coherent, first-hand experiences which allows them to develop an appreciation of the wider world beyond North Bransholme.

We embed spiritual, moral and social understanding into our curriculum to enable our children to be well-mannered and rounded, who know right from wrong and are tolerant and respectful. Building relationships is central to the wellbeing and personal development of all of the children at Highlands. A great emphasis is put on developing the following desired character traits, which give our pupils the qualities they need to flourish in society: resilience, confidence and self-esteem, communication skills, self-regulation, motivation, tolerance, respect, empathy and compassion. As a result, pupils at Highlands consistently cooperate well with others and are able to work collaboratively and in a supportive manner. Children are encouraged to understand, accept, respect and celebrate diversity.

 

How our curriculum has been designed

At Highlands, we have designed our curriculum with the following in mind:

· Progress is made when children know more and remember more – at Highlands the knowledge we want our children to know and remember over-time has been carefully identified;

· In order for our children to succeed in life, we want our children to have the cultural capital needed to be able to make aspirational choices and experience success;

· Our well-considered and well-planned curriculum takes into account the statutory requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum and the National Curriculum. Both have been used to form the basis and expectations of our own curriculum, whilst additionally taking account of the context of the school and the needs of our children;

· The full range of core and foundation subjects have been carefully mapped out across school in clear progression plans, so that knowledge, skills and concepts build over time; we want children at Highlands Primary to master a wide range of concepts and gain the knowledge and skills necessary to give them a love of learning, to prepare them for the next steps and to give them an understanding of the world in which they live;

· In order to access their learning, we recognise the need to focus on the acquisition of basic skills (reading, writing, maths and good communication skills);

· As a result of our curriculum, we want our children to be inspired, motivated and enthusiastic about their learning; Enhancements, such as visits, visitors, out of school learning and first-hand experiences are considered to be essential elements of the learning experience at Highlands;

· Strong learning behaviours are recognised as a key to success – through our well-planned PSHE/Jigsaw curriculum and firmly established ethos, our children know the characteristics that are valued; children are given regular opportunities to reflect on these.

 

Please contact Mrs D Smith for further information about our curriculum.