Curriculum Intent and Rationale             

Intent

At Howletch Lane Primary School we are proud to be an inclusive community where everyone is encouraged to play a part in ‘Creating Futures’ together’. We aim to offer all pupils a thematic curriculum that is engaging, relevant and nurturing. We want our pupils to develop the values, attitudes, knowledge and skills they need to flourish and make a positive impact within in our community and the wider world.

Our children are split into 6 groups. These groups are Little Pioneers (2 Year Old Provision), Explorers (Early Years), Pathfinders (KS1), Adventurers (Lower Key Stage 2), Navigators (Upper Key Stage 2) and Discoverers (ELP). Each of the thematic units taught in each age group aim to develop different traits and skills in the children as they progress through their learning pathway.

Little Pioneers ‘Try things out!’ Inquisitive Free thinking Wonder Bold	Explorers ‘Have a go!’ Experimental Curious Co-operative Confident	Pathfinders ‘Find a way!’ Innovative Decisive Creative Independent	Adventurers ‘Make it happen!’ Brave Risk takers Resilient Prepared	Navigators ‘Lead the way!’ Leaders Able to apply skills Overcomers Focused	Discoverers ‘Do it our way!’ Original Inventive Inspiring Energetic

With this in mind, we have implemented an ambitious and aspirational curriculum that is experiential, challenging, promotes active learning and enables pupils to be more ‘outward facing’. This, in turn, should lead to them becoming well-rounded individuals. We also want our school SHINE values of Support, Honesty, Independence, Nurturing and Enjoyment to play a key part in our pupils’ learning experiences, both inside and outside of the classroom.

Rationale for Implementation

We have a school-wide focus on reading as we believe that it enables our pupils to access the wider curriculum. We teach phonics using Little Wandle. All of our early readers have reading books which match their phonics knowledge. Our reading books continue to support readers’ learning, through high quality texts, to year 6.

Our ‘3 O’clock Read’ allows teaching staff to model being a skilled reader. We also ensure the children have the opportunity to read for pleasure on a daily basis and there is an expectation that children read to an adult at home. In English lessons, we use high quality texts which reinforce learning in foundation subjects, to develop pupils’ understanding of concepts, reading, writing and cultural capital.

In Maths, we develop retention and application in every session, with a focus on number and the four operations. Data handling, time and measures is taught in Maths and further developed across the curriculum, particularly in D&T and Science. Our frequent Maths Meetings ensure that learning in Maths is consolidated, applied and recalled from Reception to Year 6.

We use Dimensions ‘Learning Means the World’ Curriculum as the main vehicle for achieving our outlined intent, with a view to providing an ambitious, highly visible curriculum offer.

This curriculum is underpinned by four highly relevant world issues, known as the four Cs. Click on each one to see our pupils’ learning journeys for each:

Communication

We believe that communication is the key to unlocking all learning and that positive and effective communication will, without doubt, enrich our children’s future lives, including opening doors to what may be, as yet unknown careers.

We place emphasis on language and communication. We believe that if a child can say a sentence, they can write a sentence. Subject specific vocabulary is taught, displayed, modelled and used in context across the curriculum to elicit and demonstrate understanding and strengthen our children’s cultural capital offer. We recognise the need to focus on oracy within our school community; developing pupils’ vocabulary is a priority, in order to help them to express their thoughts and ideas with confidence. We aim for our pupils to be able to adapt their communication skills to different contexts and audiences, to become less passive as learners and, through this, to raise their aspirations.

We encourage our pupils to identify their feelings and become emotionally literate, so they are able to communicate effectively, confidently and appropriately, using words rather than actions to regulate emotions. We want our children to be able to develop the self-confidence to speak up when help is needed. This focus on communication is also key to managing behaviour.

We communicate with parents in a variety of ways and subject leads organise home-school events, such as our ‘Big Read’ or ‘Maths Café’, as a ‘window into learning and to increase positive parental involvement.

Culture

As a school that is located in an area which is not culturally diverse and predominantly represents a White British demographic, our children have little exposure to other people groups. As a school we are embracing recent changes which include new and more diverse families joining our community. Through our curriculum, we want all children to fully appreciate and embrace diversity by learning about and developing an understanding of a range of cultural heritages. We want them to celebrate differences, value the importance of cultural identity and behave in a respectful and tolerant way towards others, regardless of faith, ethnicity or background.

Throughout our curriculum, we uphold British Values and support the view that respecting the faith, beliefs and opinions of others fosters a culture of tolerance and freedom for all views to be expressed. We teach RE using the agreed syllabus for County Durham. We value and promote the principles of a democracy, where each person is valued for their contribution to our community.

We want our children to be proud of the local culture of Peterlee, its geography, influential people and historical links to the mining community. We want our pupils to reflect upon how the community has developed and to be enthusiastic in their positive contributions to this.

Conflict

At Howletch Lane Primary School we believe conflict is very closely linked with communication and, as most conflicts result from poor communication, we want our pupils to reflect on history and see what we can learn. Handling conflict in a positive way and learning to value and understand others’ viewpoints will help embed the values of cooperation and perseverance. Once they begin to understand what conflict is in today’s world at all levels, globally and personally and can recognise catalysts for conflict, school should be a safe place to explore how to resolve disagreements without simply shutting each other down.

Conservation

We are aware our children currently have a limited global awareness of the meaning of conservation. We want our them to care passionately about our world as global citizens, as this is such an important world issue. We feel they will do this best through a curriculum that puts sustainability at the heart of the curriculum, employing a more structured approach to developing environmental awareness and appreciation, not just at local, but also national and global levels. We need our children to play their part in future thinking and problem-solving, as both advocates and activists for positive change, and not just as passive onlookers. We aim to inspire this productive approach to conservation through embracing the possibilities available within our school grounds and within the local area.

We also encourage our pupils to have high aspirations by teaching them about human creativity and achievement through additional Competency Units about famous figures that focus on Creativity, Commitment, Courage and Community.

Learning Pathways

Click on one of our four main learning characters to see their skills learning pathway:

Click on the logo to view our curriculum in more detail