Google Search
Bottesford Infant School Curriculum statement
Every child deserves the best chance in life and that begins with us. The ethos of our school is built around 'tall oaks from little acorns grow' and so our children grow in confidence, develop their independence and have real opportunities to flourish and reach their full potential.
We pride ourselves in developing children academically, physically, emotionally and socially by providing excellent opportunities to learn. We develop in pupils a love of learning that is exciting, challenging and motivating through an innovative and active curriculum. Children learn primarily from real life experiences, so we encourage them to explore, play and apply their thinking in many different ways.
The staff are caring, dedicated and experienced. They have high expectations for all children to achieve aspirational goals. The children always give their best, leaving our school equipped with the essential skills, attitudes and enthusiasm required to become life-long learners.
We strive to ensure that everyone who has been a part of our school, has fond and happy memories of their time here!
Intent
Bottesford Infant School prides itself on integrity, values and high expectations and these qualities are what drives the school. At the heart of the school is a broad and balanced curriculum, offering exciting challenges in a meaningful way, constantly encouraging children to learn and practise skills which will stay with them for life.
Raising standards, whilst supporting emotional well-being is a priority and the responsibility of every member of staff. An emphasis on language rich learning experiences promotes the communication skills which are fundamental to successful learning.
At the heart of the school curriculum, is an innovative and well-embedded approach to teaching the key skills for future success.
Bottesford Infant School is a positive environment in which to work and learn, a safe place to take risks and accept challenges and most of all a community where we all strive to be the very best we can.
Our curriculum is driven by the need to prepare our children for lifelong learning. At Bottesford Infants we offer a rich and vibrant curriculum that is ambitious for all learners. Through our curriculum, we develop the essential knowledge, skills and understanding that are the building blocks for later life. Our curriculum encompasses not only the formal requirements of the National Curriculum, but goes beyond the experiences of the classroom to ensure that our children are exposed to the richest and most varied opportunities that we can provide.
We have a constantly evolving curriculum that responds to the needs of learners and their interests by enhancing learning experiences and raising awareness from the local area to national/global arenas. Thus, we will develop outward looking pupils who are able to engage in learning about themselves and have an understanding of the wider world and its complex cultures.
As a reflective school we continually strive to improve our teaching and learning in light of the latest research and this has included a focus on how to improve children’s long-term memory of the knowledge provided in school.
Reading is at the heart of learning and children acquire the skills and knowledge to read through the Read Write Inc. phonics scheme and well- planned reading sessions that build the knowledge to decode, read with fluency and comprehend with confidence. Vocabulary is taught explicitly.
Implementation
Curriculum design is based on evidence from cognitive science; three main principles underpin it:
In addition to the three principles, we also understand that learning is invisible in the short term and that sustained mastery takes time. Our content is subject specific and we make intra-curricular links to strengthen schema. Continuous provision, in the form of daily routines, replaces the teaching of some aspects of the curriculum and, in other cases, provides retrieval practice for previously learned content.
We ensure that learning is active, engaging and empowering as this will develop life -long learners. We implement this through a range of strategies:
We teach much of the curriculum through Project Based Learning (PBL). In project based learning, children go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. While allowing for some degree of child 'voice and choice,' rigorous projects are carefully planned, managed, and assessed to help children learn key academic content, practice 21st Century Skills (such as collaboration, communication and critical thinking), and create high-quality, authentic products and presentations. Children have opportunities to share their learning with each other, their families and the wider public through school-based and external exhibitions, performances, and competitions.
We also teach children through an immersive learning environment. This places learners in a multi-sensory stimulated environment that they can experience as if it were real! Learners' engagement and inspiration are secured by the contextual nature of the learning.
Challenge based learning is a teaching approach that we use to raise engagement and accelerate progress. It enables our children to take ownership of their learning. This approach also provides a real purpose for learning, engaging the children by providing a stimulus for child-led problem solving.
Impact
The impact of our curriculum is that children leaving Bottesford Infants are empowered to be successful in the next stage of their education and future life.
At the end of Key Stage 1 the vast majority of children leave with independence skills, knowledge and virtues to succeed in life.
For further details about how disabled pupils participate in our schools curriculum, please read our Accessibility Plan HERE
Please see the link below for more information on the National Curriculum.