Our Westbury Curriculum
Intent
Our curriculum at Westbury-on-Trym CE Primary Academy is founded on our core values; our ‘Westbury Ways’.
Striving for Excellence – Our curriculum is crafted in the pursuit of excellence for every child. This provides them all with the highly developed skills and knowledge they need to enable them to confidently challenge themselves in their learning and life. Through the curriculum, children will be encouraged to develop their curiosity. They will be challenged to understand and reflect on their own learning behaviours, so that they can thrive in a variety of situations, both now and in the future.
Enriching our Faith - Through opportunities to engage in faith – both personal and spiritual – children will develop a strong self-belief, positivity and trust in themselves and those around them. The curriculum will include links to a range of religions, as well as personal reflection, to enable children to build strong, spiritual foundations for their lives. Understanding the meaning of those foundations will support them to become tolerant and respectful citizens.
Cherishing our Community - We will provide our children with opportunities through the curriculum to cherish and value the local community and the wider world, ensuring they are outward facing and passionate about making the world a better place.
We want all of our children to be confident and ambitious, equipped to deal with a whole range of situations that they may face now and in the future; be they academic, social, emotional, physical or spiritual.
Implementation
Children are encouraged to see themselves as successful learners and we actively teach them positive learning behaviours, so that they can develop lifelong learning habits.
In their first year at our school, our flexible Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum allows us to follow each child’s unique path of learning. The children learn through play, discovery and exploration of their world and the wider world. Learning behaviours, routines and key skills are established to provide them with a solid basis for future years.
In years 1 to 6 our teaching and the children’s learning is based on the National Curriculum.
Each year group studies five topics during the year, which have been crafted and planned to build on and develop the knowledge and skills learned in previous years. This enables the children to make strong progress and links both to prior learning and across areas of learning. The topics have been carefully chosen to reflect the age, stage and interests of the children, taking into account local and national contexts. Key concepts and core knowledge will be taught and then revisited in subsequent learning. Information about what the children are learning is shared with parents/carers so that they can support them at home. Parents are highly valued as co-educators and as a key part of our community.
Our curriculum has been developed by our teaching staff, and is regularly reviewed and discussed to ensure that we are providing the best that we can for all of our children. Whilst we want our children to perform to their best in assessments, and we have clear methods to check what pupils know and can do, we are committed to providing a holistic education for all children, giving them opportunities to cultivate their own passions and interests. We offer many curricular and extra-curricular activities, including residential visits, to give all children the opportunity to have broad, enriched experiences. We have many links with local communities, as well as having long-standing links with two schools abroad, in Nepal and Uganda.
Please visit the learning section on our website for more information about curriculum coverage for each year group and for individual subjects.
