CURRICULUM INFORMATION
The LHPSN curriculum is all the planned activities that we as a school organise in order to promote learning, personal growth and development. It includes the formal requirements of the National Curriculum, the EYFS Statutory Framework and a range of other learning that the school organises to enrich the experiences of our children.
At Lickey Hills Primary School and Nursery we believe in developing the child in a progressive way through a creative but rigorous approach to teaching and learning, planning activities that challenge each child whatever their level of ability. We believe that learning should be memorable and that appropriate teaching and learning experiences help pupils to lead happy and rewarding lives. All pupils have access to the curriculum regardless of their individual ability, gender, race, cultural or social background or any physical or sensory difficulty.
LHPSN Curriculum Intent, Implementation and Impact
“A knowledge-rich curriculum is packed with experiences and is driven by a strong set of values about what matters; it has soul, moral purpose, humanity.” Tom Sherrington.
There is a belief that we are all empowered through knowing things. The LHPSN curriculum has been designed and planned especially for the children of LHPSN so that the creative, ‘rounded and grounded’ citizens we want to develop will emerge as a result of the impact of our curriculum.
The LHPSN curriculum is an interconnected school curriculum linking learning across year groups, that intends to give children opportunity to ensure learning is deep, meaningful, relevant and long lasting. This whole school curriculum creates a coherent learning journey for children across core and non-core National Curriculum themes. The LHPSN curriculum has been planned specifically to ensure our teachers are clear about what children need to know and remember as they progress through the school. This ensures that as well as a range of memorable, enriching experiences children will also know and remember specific knowledge. In addition to this, they are also able to reason, make decisions and problem solve. We have been precise in our curriculum design so that children acquire secure knowledge enabling them to move onto the next phase of their learning.
Further information can be found in our policy here: The LHPSN Curriculum 2023-2024
We have also ensured that the knowledge that we want our children to acquire is organised into subject disciplines. This means that we teach individual subjects such as History, Geography, Art, Design Technology and Modern Foreign Languages. We treat each subject separately so that pupils have a very clear understanding of what is important about each subject and that their knowledge and skills progress systematically over time in each area of the curriculum. We engage with subject experts and subject associations, in addition to capitalising on the expertise of our subject leaders within school, to ensure that what we choose to include in our curriculum is the very best that it can be.
Building Connections with our Golden Threads
There are 4 key drivers within our curriculum which encapsulate an understanding which we aim to instil in all of our pupils. We have named these drivers ‘Golden Threads’ as, to support coherence, these drivers give an interweaving focus on similar concepts and contexts throughout and across each year group and programme of study. We aim for new knowledge to become connected by building on foundations of existing understanding.
The 4 Golden Threads are:
Knowledge – To know more, remember more and be able to do more.
Legacy – To study the footprints left behind after a group of people, time in history or a person’s impact on different societies.
Global Citizenship – To understand our role and responsibility to each other and to our world.
Childhood, Home and Family – What different childhoods, homes and families are like and how they have changed over time, making connections through comparisons to our ‘home’ – the local environment of the Lickey Hills.
Our curriculum helps our children to develop the skills and knowledge they need for their future lives as well rounded global citizens in an ever changing world.
The LHPSN curriculum embraces research from cognitive science: memory, forgetting and the power of retrieval practice. Teachers build in spaced retrieval practice, formative low-stakes testing and plenty of repeated practice for automaticity and fluency. The curriculum aims to optimise opportunities for building secure and cohesive links; for example; a timeline for historical events and musical achievements, a sense of historical and geographical place in the Lickey Hills area and a framework for understanding cultural diversity in our wider multicultural society.
The LHPSN curriculum includes the ‘hidden curriculum’, or what the children learn from the way they are treated and expected to behave as a result of our values and nurturing ethos. We teach children how to grow into positive, responsible people, who can work and cooperate with others.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children’s ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life.
The National Curriculum provides an outline of core knowledge around which teachers can develop exciting and stimulating lessons to promote the development of pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills as part of the wider school curriculum. It is just one element in the education of every child.
The National Curriculum at Key Stages 1 and 2 Primary-National-Curriculum.
Language Base
At Lickey Hills Primary School and Nursery, we have a fantastic, specialist Language Base in addition to our mainstream classes. Further details can be found under the Language Base tab, but here we should note that our base pupils are increasingly and successfully integrated into mainstream classes wherever possible, with appropriate support for pupils and staff. Within Lickey Hills Language Base classes, each curriculum area is adapted to the needs of the current cohort of pupils. This creates a flexible and bespoke curriculum which changes annually.
PSHE/C
Good mental health and wellbeing is vital for children to develop personally, socially and academically so to that end, our curriculum is underpinned by the support we offer pupils to live safe and happy fulfilled lives. At LHPSN we use Jigsaw to support our PSHE/C – Personal, Social, Health, Economic and Citizenship curriculum as well as our learning in SRE – Sex and relationship Education. Jigsaw 3-11 offers a comprehensive Programme for Primary PSHE including statutory Relationships and Health Education. With strong emphasis on emotional literacy, building resilience and nurturing mental and physical health, Jigsaw enables staff to deliver engaging and relevant PSHE within a whole-school approach. Jigsaw lessons also include mindfulness allowing children to advance their emotional awareness, concentration and focus. The link below will take you to the overview of PSHE/C and the themes taught throughout the school.
We take our responsibility to prepare children for life in modern Britain very seriously and ensure that the fundamental British Values are introduced, discussed and lived out through the ethos and work of our school. These British Values are:
- Democracy.
- The rule of law.
- Individual liberty.
- Mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.
Our curriculum promotes respect for the views of each individual child, as well as for people of all cultures, backgrounds and beliefs. We value the moral development of each person, as well as their intellectual and physical growth. We organise our curriculum so that we promote cooperation and understanding between all members of our community.