Our curriculum intent

At Chesterton Primary School our children are at the heart of everything we do. We believe that a well-planned curriculum that promotes a love of learning and a willingness to explore and challenge children’s thinking is of upmost importance. We use the National Curriculum and Early Years Foundation Stage as a starting point for our curriculum but have chosen to adopt a topic based approach and have personalised it to the children who attend Chesterton. This enables our children to deepen and master their knowledge and skills in multiple subjects and make meaningful links across the curriculum. To engage learners specific themes have been chosen on the basis that they are relevant, interesting and helpful to our children in the modern age. This is reinforced through the embedding of the UNCRC articles across all curriculum areas.

Each subject has a spiral curriculum to ensure that there is a coherent sequence to the learning of knowledge, skills and vocabulary so children can recall the detailed content outlined in the curriculum and make links between the learning.  We have designed a curriculum that promotes enquiry based lessons where facilitating discussions and questioning is at the heart of all subjects. We encourage the children to explore and challenge their thinking, whilst embedding a sense of respect for ourselves and others and a sense of wonder at the world we live in.

Chesterton provides a broad and balanced curriculum that focuses on the development of the whole child.  Our curriculum is inclusive and our focus on quality first teaching ensures it is accessible to all learners. We have identified the barriers to learning that many of our children face and as a result, we have ensured that our core values (pride, resilience and kindness) and our life ladders (team work, communication, problem solving, curiosity/ creativity and independence) are threaded through our curriculum to ensure we are focusing on developing good character. We value parents and carers and work in partnership with them to enrich the curriculum.

Our curriculum focuses on basic skills and a strong focus on language acquisition runs throughout the school. We have designed a curriculum enrichment offer which complements the lessons and ensures our children have the cultural capital they need to succeed in life.

Our curriculum goals – what we want for our children:

• To be curious learners, who are motivated and have a thirst for learning
• To be confident, proactive and independent learners
• To make meaningful links between their learning in a range of subjects, fostering creativity
• To be confident speakers and active listeners who can challenge/offer views in a respectful manner
• To challenge themselves and be resilient problem-solvers.