Curriculum

Our Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed to support our whole school vision, where we aspire to:

‘Inspire today’s children to embrace tomorrow’s challenges.’

Curriculum intent

To achieve this, we have designed our curriculum around three main aims:

1. To develop excellent communication skills which allow our children to adapt to new situations, share their ideas and emotions and become active, motivated learners who can see all the possibilities which could be in front of them.
2. To embed our Gilthill learning values to create a positive learning environment that enhances academic achievement and develops students' social and relationship skills that last throughout their lives and prepares them for future challenges.
3. To provide a coherent and structured curriculum that has breadth of knowledge which is pertinent to our pupils and leads to sustained acquisition of relevant knowledge, skills and understanding of the world around them and the changing society in which we live.

At Gilthill Primary school we have designed a curriculum which provides the children with the skills to reach their full potential by developing a love of learning and a desire to succeed, they are taught in an atmosphere of warmth and support, celebrating their achievements so that they can grow in confidence. 

We provide a rich, supportive and stimulating environment, allowing the children to become independent learners, build resilience and develop high self- esteem in order to become creative, critical thinkers. We seek to provide a broad, balanced curriculum and offer a wide range of exciting, challenging activities and experiences to all pupils on which to lay a firm foundation for future learning. We believe that learning should be a rewarding and enjoyable experience for everyone. We aim to prepare young people for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technologies that haven’t even been invented, for which competition will be global.

The school follows the National Curriculum. We teach through termly learning themes, mapped on a two-yearly cycle. This ensures key concepts and knowledge enter pupils’ long-term memory through building on prior learning and making links across the curriculum. We believe that retrieval of previously learned content should be frequent and regular, which increases both storage and retrieval strength. Oracy is used to strengthen and develop our learners’ ability to acquire and retain new knowledge and deepen understanding.

We develop good learners through the key values of being ready, respectful and safe. Good learners are physically and mentally healthy, independent, self - confident and have empathy towards others. They communicate using a wide vocabulary, they have respect for others and differences, good communicators interact with others and work well in a team and are tolerant of each other. Good learners investigate by making connections, asking questions, being curious, researching information, finding evidence and apply skills and experiences. We provide opportunities for the children to become collaborative problem-solvers and investigators. Good learners are risk takers by being creative and expressive, using and applying skills and knowledge, solving problems, being imaginative, resilient and showing perseverance.

‘Teachers use ‘learning threads’ to help pupils connect their knowledge. This ensures pupils know how any new learning relates to what they have learned before. Teachers use their good subject knowledge to engage pupils in clear and meaningful learning activities. Pupils work hard to complete the tasks teachers give them. As a result, pupils are remembering more and growing in confidence as learners.’ Ofsted 2022.

If you would like any further information about our curriculum please contact Mrs Langmaid, our curriculum lead, by emailing the school office at office@gilthillprimary.org