Our Vision

Kind hearts, open minds, courageous spirits.

Together we will explore life in all its fullness.

This is a promise that we, as a whole school, will educate children to be accepting, thoughtful and courageous. Our pupils will show kindness and love to everyone around them, our pupils will understand, accept and celebrate diversity, they will recognise injustices and speak up when they see them.

This will be achieved through a curriculum based on a skills progression of our eight Christian vales. We will ensure that the pupils build the skills to live our values. Our curriculum will provide knowledge of historical and current events with context and understanding of the values. Children will learn to challenge what they see as an injustice and seek to right this. They will be ambitious, have the courage of their convictions and be empathetic to others.Through working closely with the local community and church, we will provide a warm, nurturing environment to foster ambition, curiosity, spirituality and love.

Curriculum Background

When designing our curriculum, we read around the topic and unanimously agreed that 3 theories best represent what we want our curriculum to be, in order for children to ‘know more and remember more’ (Ofsted Inspecting the Curriculum May 2019) First that we believe we should offer a balance between substantive and disciplinary knowledge; facts are important and have their place within a curriculum, but so too does the information surrounding that fact; knowing this enables children to make links and gives meaning to the learning (Christine Counsell, Taking Curriculum Seriously September 2018). Secondly, Clare Sealy’s 3D curriculum; we wanted to create vertical, horizontal and diagonal links across year groups and subjects so that knowledge is reinforced and revisited in different subjects and subsequent years. This frequent revisiting increases the chance of transferring new information into long term memory (Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve) because as Clare Sealy states ‘Knowledge can’t empower if it’s forgotten.’ Through combining these theories and our vision statement, we will educate our pupils about what shaped the world around us and how we can shape it for future generations. In addition, we’ve also worked with our local High school to find out what they want learners to know on starting year 7 so we can be confident that we’re enabling a smooth transition to the next stage of their education.

Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve: https://www.psychestudy.com/cognitive/memory/ebbinghaus-forgetting-curve

Christine Counsell: https://impact.chartered.college/article/taking-curriculum-seriously/

Clare Sealy: https://primarytimery.com/2017/10/28/the-3d-curriculum-that-promotes-remembering/

Curriculum Intent

The curriculum at Old Dalby has been built to reflect the views of our stakeholders with our eight Christian values at its core to give pupils an empowering and knowledge rich experience.

Old Dalby C of E Primary School is committed to meeting the requirements of the primary National Curriculum and Early Years Framework. We do this through carefully sequenced knowledge and teaching.

Our key principles:

• To be equally ambitious for all pupils
• To be aspirational in our expectations of children’s academic attainment in all areas of our curriculum
• To equip pupils for a life beyond primary school
• To empower pupils with the knowledge and skills to keep themselves safe in the physical and virtual worlds
• To foster pupil’s curiosity and a love of learning
• To be culturally knowledgeable about our local area, country and world
• To build kind-hearted and open-minded learners who celebrate diversity and advocate acceptance for all
• To ensure our pupils are curious, creative and independent learners

Ultimately, we want our children to be happy in school.

Throughout Key Stage 1, we use Essential Letters and Sounds to develop children's phonetical understanding and knowledge.

If you have any questions regarding the curriculum that we teach, please speak to your class teacher.