Our Curriculum
We will ensure that our children have the best educational experience it is possible to have and, as a result, are fully prepared for life beyond our school. We want our children to understand their faith, to articulate their values and to be able to act in a way which reflects these. Our school is at the heart of the community which it serves; we create children who are ready to contribute and improve themselves, those around them and the places we live.
Our curriculum is designed to enable us to realise this vision. We have designed our curriculum ourselves, entirely to suit the needs and ambitions of our school community. In every subject, we have ensured that we have met the requirements of the National Curriculum. In most cases, we have exceeded these requirements in order to deliver on our school vision.
We have a strong focus on the progressive development of children’s knowledge and skills from Early Years to the end of Key Stage 2: our staff help children to understand and remember key ideas in every subject and to demonstrate their understanding through subject specific skills. Our curriculum is challenging for all, regardless of ability or needs. By the time they leave Khalsa, we expect children to be able to independently make links with different concepts they have learnt and to use their skills to answer enquiry questions.
To support children’s understanding, we have designed a curriculum that is rooted in experiences. Our curriculum has a strong focus on our own lives, experiences and local area. Themes such as local history, migration, Sikh and British values and our place in local and wider communities are present across different subjects. We make every effort to ensure that we provide context for learning through practical activities, off-site learning – for example at a museum – and relevant visitors to school.
Finally, we have a strong emphasis on outcomes which children can be proud of. Our curriculum is designed so that children are given the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding in a creative, evaluative or analytical way for every unit of work. Our staff have created learning journeys which answer key questions and allow children to produce excellent work.
How we implement our curriculum
We have been reviewing, revisiting and replanning our curriculum to ensure it meets the expectations of our vision. This is a process we began in 2019/20, following a four-step, long-term plan that looks like this:
In order to plan, we have sequentially mapped out the requirements of the National Curriculum for each subject and then decided, through conversations with teachers, leaders and children, what should be taught. We considered how the Early Years curriculum prepared children for these areas of learning.
As a result, all subjects have a curriculum which complements our school vision and ensures that knowledge and skills are progressively taught. Subject leaders are able to take a cross sectional view of a particular skill and see how it should be taught from EYFS to Year 6.
Teachers then able to map their units over the year for each subject, making links where relevant. They then create half term maps which go into more detail and sequence the learning, lesson by lesson. From these, they use their weekly preparation time to resource and plan activities for the lessons.
We expect children to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in their books and to produce work which summarises the depth of their learning for each unit.
In addition to the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum, we ensure that PSHE, RE and Sikh Studies are taught in a way, throughout the school, that helps us to fulfil our vision.
Our curriculum is the heart of learning at our school. We work together, as a community of children, staff, parents and governors to realise our vision and keep our exciting curriculum at the center of what we teach.