Curriculum Design

At Anston Hillcrest Primary School, we have designed (in collaboration with Dimensions) and implemented a curriculum that is both immersive and progressive. We use a carefully planned model, with both breadth and depth, that is highly relevant and purposeful, exciting for both staff and children and that truly broadens outlooks and views by promoting global dimensions, as well as raising aspirations.

We aim to offer challenging and inspiring learning opportunities, highlighting human creativity and achievement. We strive to help our children realise the full potential they have to achieve and succeed, not just at school, but through life.

We have developed a curriculum that takes full advantage of the school environment and range of resources available to us.

The curriculum is designed to develop our school as a learning community, where everyone can apply their knowledge and skills appropriately.

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Curriculum Intent and Rationale                  

Intent

At Anston Hillcrest Primary School, we aim to offer all children an education that nurtures and develops the values, attitudes, knowledge and skills they need to flourish and make a positive impact in our community and the wider world. We aim to offer learning experiences which are memorable and inspire children to be proud of their learning.

With this in mind, we have implemented an ambitious and aspirational curriculum that is creative, challenging, promotes active learning and enables children to be more ‘outward facing’. This, in turn, should lead to them becoming well-rounded individuals.

We also want to embed in them the school values of respect, resilience, kindness, teamwork and aspiration. In particular, providing opportunities for learning which enable our children to grow in confidence as independent and collaborative learners, to embrace challenge and creativity and to become more curious and empathetic towards diversity within society.

We aim to empower our children in developing their identity, not only as part of the local community but as respectful, responsible global citizens.

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Rationale for Implementation

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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:-

• Communication

• Culture

• Conflict

• Conservation

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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.

Being given the opportunity to communicate their learning effectively and make connections to previous learning has been identified as an area for development. We recognise the need to focus upon developing our children’s confidence to talk about their ideas and learning, using age-appropriate vocabulary, both subject specific and non-subject specific. To become more active when asking questions, explaining and discussing both their ideas, and those of others in their learning.

Our pupils also need to understand their feelings, and those of others to become emotionally literate and to be able to communicate effectively, confidently and appropriately. This focus on communication will be a touchpoint throughout the year.

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Culture

As a school we recognise we are located in an area that is not culturally diverse. It is a predominantly White British demographic, therefore our children have little exposure to other groups. Through our curriculum, we want them 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.

We also want them to grow within our own culture in school, based on our values of respect and kindness within a caring community.

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Conflict

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 our values of teamwork by working together, learning from each other and supporting each other.

We want our pupils to begin to understand what conflict is in today’s world at all levels, globally and personally and to be able to recognise catalysts for conflict. Our curriculum aims to provide experiences to explore different perspectives and develop empathy and understanding.

Conservation

We want our children to care passionately about our world as global citizens. 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.

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We also encourage our children 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.

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Curriculum Drivers

Our curriculum is underpinned by four highly relevant world issues, known as the four Cs:-

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