Curriculum

We want children to be life-long learners, who are excited by challenge and gain joy from acquiring new skills and knowledge. As a church school our Christian ethos is at the heart of all we do. Our work as a school and our curriculum are underpinned by the values of Faith, Respect, Excellent and Determination. We want to equip children for the future and are prepared to be innovative and bold with our curriculum delivery. We want our children to be outstanding in all areas and in all arenas, and are constantly reviewing our curriculum to ensure it provides the motivation, the skills, and the level of challenge to achieve this aim.

The Sundridge and Brasted curriculum is designed to help pupils:

1. To develop lively, enquiring minds together with a positive desire to learn, to question and discuss rationally and to apply themselves intelligently to tasks.

2. To experience the joy and satisfaction of creativity.

3. To consider the religious, spiritual and moral values of others, and to consider their own attitudes, values and beliefs

4. To acquire knowledge and skills relevant, in a changing world, to their adult lives at work and at leisure.

5. To understand the history and present condition of their own society and the world in which they live and the interdependence of individuals, groups and nations.

6. To develop a sense of self-respect and individual worth, a capacity to live as independent, self-motivated adults and the ability to live and work in co-operation with others.

7. To develop positive qualities of empathy and imagination and an appreciation of human achievement and endeavour.

 

In our school this is interpreted by delivering a curriculum to our children that is motivating, exciting, real and relevant to their own lives and experiences. We teach in a cross-curricular way, delivering themed units of work that are exciting, tap into the children’s own interests and relate to their world locally and globally.

Our units of work are carefully designed to develop a child’s level of skill and knowledge day-by-day, week-by-week, and year-on-year. It is this relentless drive for excellence and our partnership with parents that promotes outstanding achievement.
 

Practicalities

Through our units of work, we ensure complete coverage of the Early Years ‘Development Matters’ Curriculum in Reception class and the National Curriculum from Year 1 to Year 6 . The national curriculum considers subjects in 2 groups and we follow this:

 

Core Subjects:

• English
• Mathematics
• Science
• ICT
• RE (This is a core subject in our church school.)

 

Foundation Subjects

• Geography
• History
• Art
• Design and Technology
• Music
• Physical Education
• Personal, Social and Health Education

 

In addition we teach French throughout the school.

 

Phonics and reading are taught throughout the school using a single systematic phonics scheme based on ‘Letters and Sounds’ called ‘Jolly Phonics’. Books from several different schemes are levelled under a single system of coloured book banding. This enables children to benefit from variety in their reading, and reminds them that reading is a skill to be used in many contexts rather than becoming trapped with one stagnant set of characters.