Curriculum Drivers

Curriculum Drivers

The three key curriculum drivers which we have built into our enquiry-led curriculum are

  • Perseverance
  • Passion and
  • Purpose

As noted earlier, these are also three of our core values for teaching and learning. We feel that they are not only crucial to the school values but at the heart of our enquiry-led curriculum. A few examples from our exciting curriculum will illustrate their importance:

Perseverance within our science topics is crucial during Science week – for example, one class challenge during Lockdown was to build the tallest spaghetti tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows. Here the children showed great resilience and did not give up. The challenge was also mirrored in our most popular after school club – Science.  

Isla, Amelie and Tessa have been loving the Lego League in 2021 and 2022; they have shown great perseverance in working with their Spike robot to programme him to deliver books back to the library: please take a look at the video below. The girls said, “It’s crashed literally fifty times or more – we have found it difficult but we will not be defeated!”

Passion, as mentioned, is a core value and now also a curriculum driver. Mr McKim, our Year 5 TA and autism champion said, “If you haven’t got passion it will show in their learning; it is something you can’t fake either as the children will pick up on it. Personally, I enjoy coming to work and hope that I can inspire the children I work with.”

The passion that some children show, for example, with their reading is also infectious: during the autumn term, a Year 6 fiction book was discussed in a British Values linked assembly by the Headteacher – The Explorer by Katherine Rundell. This led to a pupil in Year 4 saying, “It’s my favourite book of all time Mr Watkins.” Subsequently, after Christmas in January 2022, one member of the Year 3 class stated, “I bought The Explorer out of my own money and I can’t wait to read it.” It is these small pieces of passion that we aim to impart that help give our children their own inspiration to achieve.  

Purpose – all of our learning needs a purpose. Within our new-look medium term plans you will see curriculum ‘composites’ – these act as learning events that the children work toward in order to illustrate their learning – these come in many forms, for example, in Reception this year, Jess Penrose’s class have been reading ‘The Everywhere Bear’ – here they wrote their own story and made their own illustrations up; this was published and shared with parents. They also had a remote visit from the illustrator, Rebecca Cobb, who inspired the children to do their own ‘stick art’. In Year 5 this term, the class will be having an Indian-inspired feast; here, they will be creating their own curries and cooking their own japatis outside on a wood-fire. A special guest visitor from The Trust may also be coming in to judge the creations with the purpose of winning ‘The Great Indian Cook-off.’
 
Sometimes, depending on the learning taking place, the end outcome (or composite) is often straightforward to organise and implement. One example would be in Year 3, when, for their Spanish topic around 'animals', the parents were 'tested' by their child to see if they could work out the animal spoken. Another good illustration of this would be in Year 6 when they may use a 'Kahoot' or Microsoft 'Forms' quiz to test their knowledge in geography.  
 

The SNEET – St Newlyn East Environmental Team - are proud of their role and purpose in school and the community. Through our connections with the STEM co-ordinator for the south-west – Janine Bisson - we have been able to undertake planting, litter pick, invest in a polytunnel, launch an online crowdfundraiser and begin to sell our own apples! The children, through these mini-projects, all see the significance of their role, Sophie who leads the group said, “There probably isn’t any other planet that we will be able to go to in our lifetimes and so we need to save the one we’ve got.”