Our curriculum
The primary curriculum was recently reviewed by a Government organisation headed by Sir Jim Rose. This new framework becomes a requirement in September 2011. We are currently looking at our curriculum and the way we teach it and so are bearing these new requirements in mind as we do so.
Here we provide an overview of the curriculum we will teach. Each of the areas of learning has its own page.
Children’s learning needs to keep pace with our rapidly changing world. The new primary curriculum has been designed to prepare children for the opportunities and challenges they face in the 21st century.
The new curriculum is an integrated framework for learning. It provides breadth and balance as well as securing the fundamentals of literacy, numeracy and ICT capability. There is a strong emphasis on children’s personal development, including the development of learning and thinking skills, and personal, social and emotional skills.
The new curriculum promotes:
- high standards and good progress for all children, with no child left behind
- a strengthened focus on securing essential literacy and numeracy skills, with opportunities to develop, use and apply these skills embedded throughout the curriculum
- increased expectations of children's information and communication technology (ICT) capability and the use of technology to enhance learning across the curriculum
- a continued entitlement to a broad, balanced and coherent curriculum through the creation of broad areas of learning
- recognition that children need a well-rounded school experience to succeed, and that personal development is essential to wellbeing and achievement
- better transition from the early years to primary and from primary to secondary education.
Curriculum aims
The National Curriculum has three broad aims. It should enable all young people to become:
- successful learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve
- confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives
- responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society.
These aims should form the basis of all aspects of teaching and learning and be the starting point for a school designing its own specific curriculum.
The curriculum should reflect values in our society that promote personal development, equality of opportunity, economic wellbeing, a healthy and just democracy, and a sustainable future.
These values should relate to:
- ourselves, as individuals capable of spiritual, moral, social, intellectual and physical growth and development
- our relationships, as fundamental to the development and fulfilment of happy and healthy lives, and to the good of the community
- our society, which is shaped by the contributions of a diverse range of people, cultures and heritages
- our environment, as the basis of life and a source of wonder and inspiration that needs to be protected.
Essentials for learning and life
The essentials for learning and life describe the skills, attitudes and dispositions that children need to become well-rounded individuals and lifelong learners. They include literacy, numeracy and ICT capability, learning and thinking skills, and personal, social and emotional skills. The design of the new curriculum prioritises these skills and offers teachers scope to teach them well.
Why areas of learning?
During the review many primary schools said that organising the curriculum into 12 or more subjects was not appropriate for primary. They also said that organising subject content within broad areas and encouraging links between subjects was much more in line with what actually happened in primary schools.
Ofsted said that some of the most effective learning occurred when connections were made between subjects. Areas of learning made these connections more explicit and made planning for them more manageable for schools.
What is the role of subjects in the new primary curriculum?
Subject disciplines remain important in their own right, especially as pupils move through their primary education. Making links between subjects will enrich children’s learning. Subject associations have been closely involved in the development of the programmes of learning. For example, representatives from the Historical Association and the Geographical Association helped draft the historical, geographical and social programme.
Curriculum progression is set out in three stages – early, middle and late. Late primary focuses on ensuring children have the essential subject knowledge, skills and understanding to make progress in secondary school.
What is the status of Religious Education?
Religious Education is a statutory subject and part of the primary curriculum. The syllabus is locally determined, supported by a non–statutory national framework and programme of learning.
What else is new?
The new curriculum makes dance, drama and citizenship part of the statutory curriculum and introduces an entitlement for all children to learn a modern foreign language from the age of seven.
More information
- More about Literacy in the new curriculum
- More about Numeracy in the new curriculum
- More about ICT Capability in the new curriculum
- More about Learning and Thinking Skills in the new curriculum
- More about Personal and Emotional Skills in the new curriculum
- More about Social Skills in the new curriculum
- More about Assessment in the new curriculum
