Wolston St Margarets Church of England Primary School

Walston St Margret's
Life at Wolston St Margarets Church of England Primary School Life at Wolston St Margarets Church of England Primary School Life at Wolston St Margarets Church of England Primary School Life at Wolston St Margarets Church of England Primary School Life at Wolston St Margarets Church of England Primary School Life at Wolston St Margarets Church of England Primary School Life at Wolston St Margarets Church of England Primary School

 

 

 

 

Intent

We want the curriculum at Wolston St Margaret’s C of E Primary School to be inspiring and aspirational. It will have clear connections through all key stages and subject areas so that our pupils recall, retain and remember their academic learning as well as building on life and learning skills.

As well as learning within our Christian school, we aim to use our curriculum to provide a wide range of enrichment opportunities outside of the classroom. Our intent is to ensure that our curriculum is modern and up-to-date so that our pupils can enter the wider world with a broad, diverse and inclusive outlook.

At Wolston St Margaret’s, we recognise that ’Learning Means the World’ is a curriculum for human flourishing and that the importance of human creativity and achievement leads to the development of educated citizens. Our pupils will be global citizens as well as Wolston citizens.

 

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

 

Communication

 

 

 

Culture                       

 

 

 

Conflict

Conservation

 

 

 

 

Our curriculum narrative begins with Communication, as we believe that it is the underpinning of everything and is a key curriculum driver for us. It is important to establish this at the beginning of the school year and see this thread through all other areas of the curriculum. After communication, we will explore Culture. We recognise that good communication skills can help us to understand a wide range of cultures and backgrounds by asking good questions and listening to what others have to say. We also want to give our pupils the opportunity to visit places and people that are different to their own cultural or ethnic background. The next step along our curriculum journey will be Conflict. Often poor communication and lack of cultural understanding is the driver of many conflicts and we want our pupils to recognise that good communication skills and awareness of others can heal rifts both on small and large scales. It is important for our pupils to acknowledge that, after conflicts, we want to leave the situation in a better place than we started it and this brings us to our final ‘world issue’, Conservation. The final term is a time of change and transition and we will use conservation as a catalyst for looking at changes in our environment as well as changes for our pupils. We will also have more expansive opportunities to improve the local environment and use the outside space around the school more effectively to support the pupils’ learning and understanding of conservation issues.

 

 

Communication

At Wolston St Margaret’s we believe that communication is key to everything, from ensuring good mental health and wellbeing, to communicating with friends and adults and being able to access the full curriculum. We feel that it is one of our biggest curriculum drivers. We understand the importance of pupils being able to communicate what they need and what others need from them in the form of clear speaking and listening skills from an early age. It is these early communication skills that are essential for further development in building relationships and more complex learning. In recent years we have noticed that, as pupils enter the school at nursery, some key early communication goals are lacking and it is our fundamental aim to guarantee strong, foundation communication skills in the early years. Through exposure to broad, rich and challenging vocabularies, genres and text types, we want to make sure our curriculum is fully accessible and so that all pupils have a voice, are heard and recognise that communication comes in many forms.

 

Culture

The community and village culture is very strong at Wolston St Margaret’s with close links to the local church. Many of the pupils have had family in the village for many generations and whilst this builds robust community spirit, it does mean that many of our pupils don’t often have opportunities to mix with people or engage in experiences that are from more diverse cultural backgrounds and ethnicities. We want our pupils to recognise that the world is bigger than their village and our curriculum and ethos are implemented to make sure they are prepared for the wider world. Our pupils are excited, open-minded and ready to learn more about people from backgrounds or ethnicities that are different to their own. We want to give our pupils chances to meet other people and have varied cultural experiences by expanding our enrichment and learning beyond the school and the village setting. As mentioned in our curriculum intent, we want our pupils to develop from Wolston citizens into global citizens.

 

Conflict

At Wolston, we want our pupils to understand that conflict is part of everyday life and it does not always mean large-scale, international wars but also small disagreements and fall outs. Saying this, we want our curriculum and ethos to teach our pupils to see that conflict, both in starting and ending, leads back to communication.  We want our pupils to be able to share how they feel and recognise the emotions that others may be feeling. It is important that our pupils understand that conflict can occur because simply someone is having a bad day and, by speaking, listening and being patient, we can help to avoid a confrontation or argument. Patience and forgiveness are key parts of our Christian values and we want our teaching around conflict to also link with them. We aim to help our pupils to understand that just because conflict occurs, it does not mean that there isn’t love and that after conflict, resolution and forgiveness are essential.

 

Conservation

Our school is very fortunate to have lots of green space both within the school grounds and in the village where it is located. Our priority is to make sure that our pupils have regular access to the outdoor spaces within the school and to have experiences of learning outside on a more regular basis. We want our pupils to recognise the role that they play in conserving both the green spaces close to home and the impact this can have on the wider world. It is important that they do not see conservation and environmental responsibility as someone else’s job, it can often be the smallest steps that have the biggest impact. We recognise, also, that our pupils are now growing up in a very ‘throw away society’ and it is vital that, through our curriculum, we teach our pupils to care for, look after and, if possible, think of ways to fix things if they are broken.

We are also aiming to continue our work with the Global Citizen Award through Christian Aid and further use our Christian values of loving the world and the people that live in it.

 

 

At Wolston St Margaret's, using Dimensions – Learning Means the World curriculum, we have developed a thematic approach to learning, that not only addresses all aspects of the National Curriculum, but engages and interests our children. Some subjects are taught as part of this thematic sequence of learning, but some subjects are taught discretely. The timetable has been carefully considered to ensure that our children experience a broad range of subjects and knowledge.

The following subjects are taught thematically:

The following subjects are taught discretely: