Our Enriched and Challenging Curriculum

We pride ourselves on the way that learning is encouraged in a whole variety of ways. Every experience is a learning opportunity.

The curriculum at St John’s is designed to engage, excite, challenge and motivate children to love learning, be confident in their abilities to succeed and to enable all to become independent learners. Children are encouraged to be inquisitive, to risk take and to embrace mistakes as a pathway to successful learning. The breadth, balance and challenge of the curriculum equips them with the skills and confidence to be successful and to excel in their next stage of education and for life-long learning. To grow great minds and attitudes to learning we fully embrace a Growth Mindset approach in all areas of school life. We enhance the planned curriculum through visits to topic-related places of interest, visitors and stimulating activities to engage and excite the children in the learning journey ahead.

We embrace our local community for our children to understand about giving to and supporting others. Learning is further enriched by members of the community coming into school bringing their skills and knowledge of the world to our children.

In the Reception year we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage. St John’s recognises and celebrates the importance of a child’s first experiences at school. Through our core ethos of ‘love your neighbour’, ‘respect everyone’ and ‘value diversity’ sitting alongside our vision of ‘educational excellence’ and ‘development of the whole child’ it is the aim of St John’s to enable every child in the EYFS to experience success. Play-based learning is paramount and children have opportunities to direct their own learning with planned opportunities provided by staff. We plan a learning environment, both indoors and outdoors, that encourages a positive attitude to learning and reflects the individual’s interests, passions and abilities.  We create a balance between child-centred and adult-led learning that is flexible across the year. We use materials and equipment that reflect both the community that the children come from and the wider world. We encourage the children to make their own selection of the activities on offer, as we believe that this encourages independent learning. We ensure that resources and spaces are accessible, safe to use and checked regularly.

 

In KS1 and KS2 we plan through the National Curriculum whilst also going deeper and wider. We want our children to hold onto, and develop further, the independent skills and love for learning that they gain in their first year at school. Organisation of the curriculum reflects a strong, whole-school approach designed around the needs of our unique children. This engaging, active approach is linked throughout the whole school through:
The school vision – Growing Together In Love And Respect
Whole school monthly values and the core British values
Whole school learning themes from Reception to Year 6.