Curriculum | West Boldon Primary School

Introduction

West Boldon Primary is a two-form entry school, which serves a diverse catchment area. It is a school with high expectations and good behaviour, where pupils are keen to learn and very accepting of others.

Curriculum Links

Intent

Every child is recognised as a unique individual at West Boldon. We celebrate and welcome the differences within our school community. The ability to learn is underpinned by the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, concepts and values. We constantly provide enhancement opportunities to engage learning and believe that childhood should be a happy, investigative and enquiring time in our lives where there are no limits to curiosity and there is a thirst for new experiences and knowledge. We promote positive attitudes to learning, which reflect the values and skills needed to promote responsibility for learning and future success.

Our curriculum has been designed to:-

recognise children’s prior learning

provide first-hand learning experiences

allow the children to develop interpersonal skills

build resilience

become creative, critical thinkers.

Children leave school with a sense of belonging to a tightly knit community where they have the confidence and skills to make decisions, self-evaluate, make connections and become lifelong learners.

Our curriculum offers a wide range of inspiring, engaging and exploratory learning experiences, that includes developing cultural capital through planned activities, such as residential trips. We aim to raise pupils’ aspirations by teaching them about human creativity and achievement and we strive to help our pupils understand the impact we have on the world we live in, not just at school, but as educated citizens, not just within their own community but on a wider global scale.

Rationale for Implementation

We use Dimensions ‘Learning Means the World’ Curriculum as the vehicle for this, with a view to changing our pupils’ hearts, as well as their minds.

Whilst providing full National Curriculum coverage, this curriculum is underpinned by four highly relevant world issues, known as the four Cs:-

Culture

Communication

Conflict

Conservation

Communication

We believe that learning to communicate and learning to listen are the keys to success, not just academically, but socially and emotionally too. This includes developing conversation skills by teaching pupils how and when to talk. Due to many pupils’ limited vocabulary on entry, we focus on building this up across the curriculum. Our pupils are keen to expand and deepen their vocabulary, so in order to ensure that they experience new words on a regular basis, we employ strategies such as our ‘Word a Day’ focus.

We believe good communication skills are necessary tools in order to, not only fully access the broader curriculum, but to succeed in later life.

Culture

Community involvement is an essential part of our curriculum as we celebrate local traditions, learning new skills to enable the children to take an active role in events throughout the year. As a predominantly White British demographic, we want our pupils to value the diversity that exists in society, to understand the roots and importance of cultural heritage on a wider scale and to behave in a respectful and tolerant way towards others, regardless of faith, gender, sexuality, ethnicity or background. We actively and explicitly promote cross-cultural friendship, respect, understanding and tolerance through our ‘Learning Means the World’ Curriculum.

Our curriculum incorporates history-based aspirational Competency Theme Units, which draw inspiration from a range of diverse historical role models like Josephine Baker, helping to also promote courage, commitment, creativity and a sense of community in pupils.

Conflict

Pupils need to learn how to handle conflict well, realising that it is important to develop empathy in order to develop positive relationships in their immediate home and school environments, as well as in the wider community. They need an appreciation of other opinions and perspectives in order to learn how to address conflict and develop the necessary skills to resolve it.

We also want them to understand the wider impact of conflict globally, broadening their own knowledge and perspectives.

Conservation

Children understand the importance of conservation but need to be more invested in it.Sustainable action is being taken in school e.g. installing HEPA filters in classrooms, reviewing fuel sources, and feel we can help our pupils develop a much deeper knowledge of how to make the world a better place through a curriculum that makes sustainability and stewardship central.

We want the children to become good stewards for the future, who are able to be actively involved by identifying the many conservation opportunities locally e.g. local beach. We want them to see that they can make a difference and make positive changes. By developing problem-solving, collaboration and communication skills, and looking at how they can actively become more involved, we believe they can make a real difference in effecting positive change for the future.

‘Learning Means the World’ employs a structured approach to developing environmental awareness and appreciation, not just at local, but also national and global levels.

Curriculum Organisation

At West Boldon Primary School, 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:

Science

History

Geography

Art

Design Technology

Computing

Music

PSHE

The following subjects are taught discretely:

English

Maths

Religious Education

Physical Education

Modern Foreign Languages (French)

Theme Cycles

As our Pathfinders (KS1) children are currently in mixed Year 1/2 classes, we follow a two-yearly cycle. For the academic year 2024/25 we are following Theme Cycle A in the table below.

	Cycle A	Cycle B
Communication	Happily Ever After	Inter-Nation Media Station
Competency Unit	Never Eat Shredded Wheat	Paddington’s Passport
Culture	Come Fly With Me… Arctic Circle	Zero to Hero
Competency Unit	Children’s Champion: The Story of Thomas Barnardo	Royal Patrons
Conflict	Unity in the Community	Land Ahoy!
Competency Unit	Jurassic Hunter	Dancing Spy
Conservation	Going Wild!	Light up the World

The ‘Big Ideas’ of ‘Learning Means the World’

In line with the centrally prescribed National Curriculum aims, the ‘big ideas’ ensure pupils gain a real appreciation of human creativity and achievement.

Route 1 – Leadership
There are four strands within the Leadership Route, which are as follows:-

Monarchy
Pioneers
Leaders of Societal Change
National leaders, Empires and Dynasties

Leadership
Route
Pathway

Route 2 – Discovery
There are three strands within the Discovery Route, which are as follows:-

Inventions and Developments
Exploration
Disciplinary Discoveries

Discovery
Route
Pathway

The ‘big ideas’, as well as the 4Cs – Communication, Conflict, Culture and Conservation – provide the framework for learning to grow and develop. These strong threads help to develop the curriculum sequence diagonally, as well as horizontally and vertically.

Important links: