Curriculum

The Walsh Memorial C of E VC Infant School Curriculum

Our Vision

Walsh Memorial CE (VC) Infant School creates a strong, nurturing, Christian school community, in which all pupils are valued and encouraged to embrace a love of learning. Inspired by the actions of St Peter, we strive to create resilient, independent and articulate learners who persevere and aspire to be the best they can. Our Christian Values enable our school community to flourish in a safe, secure and happy environment, giving every child the confidence and enthusiasm to become life-long learners. Through our value of love and understanding of God, our school community demonstrates compassion, kindness, consideration and to cherish our world and everyone in it.

The Walsh Way – Our Curriculum Vision

Our Values underpin our curriculum, enhancing each curriculum area and are evident throughout the school.

Community – We create a strong, nurturing, Christian school community, in which all pupils are valued and encouraged to embrace a love of learning. In our learning community we work together, and everyone can succeed. We have strong relationships with our community and work in partnership with our parents, carers and other members of our community. In our school community we demonstrate compassion, kindness, consideration and cherish our world and everyone in it. We are preparing for and growing our understanding of our role in our wider community.

Love – Love underpins everything that we do. We encourage everyone in our school community to be kind, thoughtful and caring. We always put the welfare of our children first. We nurture a love of learning by developing creative, enquiring and independent minds. We celebrate being a church school and, as God taught us, we show love and care towards one another, nurturing each other and supporting one another in love. Love is evident in our relationships with each other and in our actions to support our community and our world.

Perseverance – We aspire to be the best we can. Through hard work and perseverance, we succeed. We are all challenged, and we have the perseverance to keep trying even when things are difficult.

Our Golden Promises are-

Be Safe 

Be Ready

Be Kind

National Curriculum aims 

The National Curriculum provides pupils with an introduction to the essential knowledge that they need to be educated citizens. It introduces pupils to the best that has been thought and said and helps engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.

The National Curriculum is just one element in the education of every child. There is time and space in the school day and in each week, term and year to range beyond the national curriculum specifications. 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 curriculum.

Our curriculum model is based on the progression of skills we have identified and outlined for every subject and these underpin the learning.

 

Curriculum Intent 

All children will have access to our planned, taught and rich curriculum. This is the National Curriculum, enriched by our school curriculum. We prioritise teaching our children to read well. We believe that the acquisition of synthetic phonics knowledge and skills is vital to begin a successful journey as a reader and that reading is the gateway to learning. Our aspiration for the children at Walsh is that they will experience exciting, engaging learning experiences which foster a love of learning and the perseverance to tackle challenges successfully.  We believe children learn best when they have first- hand experiences and so our children can be seen busy learning, through many different exciting experiences, in the classrooms and around our school. Trips and visits are carefully planned to enhance learning, promote aspiration, and provide the building blocks towards the cultural capital that our children need to succeed in life.

We are inclusive and aim to ensure all members of our community feel welcomed, valued and are represented within the school.  All children in our happy school community, including the most vulnerable learners, study the full National Curriculum. Where appropriate, the curriculum is carefully adapted to meet the needs of some children.

Our curriculum ensures the basic skills of oral language, literacy, numeracy, and personal, social and health are well embedded so that our children can participate in the entire curriculum.  Our curriculum design enables children to discover and make links with previous learning. We use our assessment to inform the planning of fun, appropriate, learning activities and opportunities.

Children are taught the subject knowledge and skills that are needed to meet the demands of the curriculum and prepare them for the wider world. The emphasis on language, including subject specific and technical vocabulary continues so that they can appreciate, and communicate their views. This is mapped in our curriculum plans.

The entire curriculum promotes our school values: Community, Love, Perseverance which prepare our children for their next steps in education and life in modern Britain.

We are currently updating all of our curriculum areas in line with our curriculum vision. Please watch this space for these new updates!

EYFS Long Term Plan                  Year One Long Term Plan                     Year Two Long Term Plan