Curriculum Intent and Rationale
Be Kind, Be Creative, Be Courageous
Intent
We aim to offer a curriculum that is exciting, engaging, and highly relevant, empowering our pupils to become independent, well-rounded individuals.
With this in mind, we have implemented a coherent, sequential curriculum model that enables pupils’ learning to connect and progress, year-on-year.
We want to offer high-quality teaching and learning for all our pupils that highlights the importance of human creativity and achievement and leads to the development of educated citizens within our own community and on a wider national and global scale. At Rothersthorpe, we understand the need for a curriculum that has human flourishing at its heart and the importance of human creativity and achievement in the development of educated citizens.
We have a strong commitment to the school motto of ‘Be Kind, Be Creative, Be Courageous’ It creates the platform for our pupils to safely explore new ideas to develop their learning throughout their educational journey at Rothersthorpe.
Rationale for Implementation
We are committed to ensuring that our pupils see meaningful connections through their curriculum. We want them to encounter aspects of learning that are ambitious and challenge them to think beyond their immediate surroundings and circumstances.
We use Dimensions ‘Learning Means the World’ Curriculum as the main vehicle for achieving our outlined intent.
This curriculum is underpinned by four highly relevant world issues, known as the four Cs:-
- Culture
- Communication
- Conflict
- Conservation
Culture
The pupils at Rothersthorpe have very close connections with the church, parish council and local village community. The school is used regularly by the village and the pupils support the village community through activities such as Gardening Club. This understanding of local culture and links to British values makes for a strong, supportive culture within the school and community. We want our pupils to recognise further that cultural differences are positives, and that the world is a rich tapestry of cultures, languages, appearances and attitudes to life. We want our pupils to fully appreciate and embrace cultural diversity, learning about and experiencing a range of different cultural and faith heritages found in wider society.
We want them to value diversity, understand the roots and importance of cultural heritage and to behave in a respectful and tolerant way towards others, regardless of faith, ethnicity, or background.
Communication
We believe that pupils need to understand the immense power of good communication skills in preparing them for the future, helping them build positive relationships and providing them with tools to succeed. As such, we have identified developing excellent communication skills as a priority for equipping our pupils for the future.
We want our pupils to use language that is appropriate to their audience as a means of increasing confidence, encouraging and supporting each other through both verbal and non-verbal communication as part of our strong sporting culture.
Conflict
We believe that a range of skills should be taught throughout the curriculum in order to build up resilience and helping pupils cope in a range of difficult situations is part of this process. An understanding of responsible, respectful behaviour is an important aspect of learning. With a focus on restorative conversations, we believe conflict is a highly relevant focus for our curriculum. Having a developed understanding of sources of conflict and the importance of seeing things from others’ points of view, we believe, will make a difference to their own choices as they learn more about conflict resolution.
Conservation
Conservation and awareness of sustainability issues are a real strength at Rothersthorpe Primary School. Our rural location means that pupils are aware of environmental concerns and are keen to look after their local area. We believe it is essential to teach our pupils about sustainability as part of becoming a responsible citizen. We need them to recognise that this is about helping future generations, not just themselves. They need to be well-equipped to contribute to conservation work, realising what impact their own behaviour has on the environment. Rothersthorpe has a ‘Green Tree Award’ and we plan to invest in developing this in our grounds by planting more and actively reducing our CO2 emissions. We especially want them to develop a compassionate and caring attitude to the natural world, learning how to interact sensitively with wildlife. We are particularly excited to have an Eco Club which we are hoping to strengthen through our ‘Learning Means the World’ Curriculum and continue to maintain strong links with our Gardening Club in the village. Some of our pupils are very confident about conservation issues and have won courageous advocacy awards for their work. We aim to encourage and celebrate these achievements within our curriculum.
We understand the importance of our pupils being involved in conservation and the decisions that are made when looking after the environment. Our pupils have been involved in the development of a new playground and outside learning space in the village, and we have good connections with the Canal and River Trust. We have run regular conservation projects with them.
Our curriculum narrative begins with Communication, as we believe that it is at the root of everything and good communication skills, both speaking and listening, can be the building blocks for further learning in all areas. It is how we show what we know and what we understand; both important skills throughout life. We will then follow this with Conflict, as poor communication skills can quite easily lead to conflicts both personally and in much wider contexts. By developing good communication skills, however, we want our pupils to put them to good use in working out ways to solve their own conflicts. Culture will follow conflict as we will highlight that as well as poor communication, a lack of understanding and tolerance of culture can lead to conflict. We want our pupils to develop their understanding of wider cultures due to the lack of diversity in their immediate community and foster positive approaches in asking questions and finding out about cultures different to their own. We will finish our school year with Conservation. As the pupils have explored a variety of cultures and some of the places they have developed from, we want them to recognise the importance of conservation in culture and the environment. Our pupils will have opportunities to improve their local environment through links to the village and discuss ways in which conservation is essential both locally and in the wider world.
We also encourage our pupils to have high aspirations by teaching them about human creativity and achievement through additional Competency Units about famous figures and groups of people that focus on Creativity, Commitment, Courage and Community.