Curriculum

A creative, broad and balanced curriculum; unlocking the potential

Introduction

"The curriculum at Farndon is superb. It is broad, progressive and challenging." Local Authority Inspector Sept 2024

"The school's well planned curriculum helps to ensure that teachers know what pupils need to learn and in what order. This is so that, over time, pupils know and remember more in a wide range of subjects. Most pupils achieve well across the curriculum" OFSTED March 2020

Our school’s curriculum is all the planned activities that we organise in order to promote learning, personal growth and development. It includes not only the formal requirements of the National Curriculum, but also the various extended-curricular activities that the school organises in order to enrich each child’s experience. It also includes the hidden curriculum – what the children learn from the way they are treated and how they are expected to behave. We want children to grow into positive, responsible people, who can work and cooperate with others, while at the same time developing their knowledge and skills, in order to unlock their full potential.

But what do our parents think? One parent told us, "My child skips into school and runs to class – this is a credit to his class teacher who makes learning fun and engaging. My child comes home excitedly about their new learning. All staff in school are welcoming and nurturing, creating a wonderful school based community feel."

We endorse the aspirations concerning the curriculum that are set out in the National Curriculum and we seek the highest standards of attainment for all our children. We also value the breadth of the curriculum that we provide. We aim to foster creativity in our children, and to help them become independent learners. Above all, we believe in making learning fun.

At Farndon, we have adopted a thematic topic approach, exploiting links with other subjects and using quality texts at the centre of each topic. We believe this brings all the curriculum subjects to life and also gives a sense of purpose to their learning. Where learning is fun, exciting, purposeful and engaging, we believe that this promotes a love of learning. We believe our curriculum meets Article 29 for the Rights of the child as its aim is to develop every child's personality, talents and abilities. Through our work in SMSC and Global learning, it also encourages our pupils to respect human rights, as well as respect for their own and other cultures and the environment.

Values

Our school curriculum is underpinned by the values that we hold dear at our school. The curriculum is the means by which the school achieves its objectives of educating children in the knowledge, skills and understanding that they need in order to lead fulfilling lives.

• We value children's uniqueness, we listen to the views of individual children, and we promote respect for diverse cultures.
• We value the spiritual and moral development of each person, as well as their intellectual and physical growth.
• We value the importance of each person in our community, and we organise our curriculum to promote inclusion, cooperation and understanding among all members of our community.
• We value the rights enjoyed by each person in our society. We respect each child in our school for who they are, and we treat them with fairness and honesty. We want to enable each person to be successful, and we provide equal opportunities for all our pupils.
• We will strive to meet the needs of all our children, and to ensure that we meet all statutory requirements regarding inclusion.
• We value our environment, and we want to teach our pupils, through our curriculum, how we should take care of the world, not only for ourselves, but also for future generations.

Curriculum Intent Statement

The intent of our school curriculum is to design a curriculum which is accessible to all and that will maximise the development of every child’s ability and academic achievement. The aims of our curriculum are:

• To enable all children to learn, and develop their skills, to the best of their ability;
• To promote a positive attitude towards learning, so that children enjoy coming to school, and acquire a solid basis for lifelong learning;
• To teach children the basic skills of literacy, mathematics and computing;
• To provide planned opportunities for children to apply the basic skills across the curriculum;
• To enable children to be creative and to develop their own thinking;
• To teach children about the developing world, including how their environment and society have changed over time;
• To help children understand Britain's cultural heritage and the fundamental British Values that exist today.
• To proactively promote the Equality Act and as a result appreciate and value the contribution made by all minority groups in our diverse society;
• To enable children to be positive citizens;
• To fulfil all the requirements of the National Curriculum and the Locally Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education;
• To teach children to have an awareness of their own spiritual development, and to distinguish right from wrong;
• To help children understand the importance of truth and fairness, so that they grow up committed to equal opportunities for all;
• To enable children to have respect for themselves and high self-esteem, and to live and work cooperatively with others.

Please take the time to click on the various links that show just a snap shot of some of the work we have been doing in our School.