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Holly Hill Church School, Birmingham

Our Curriculum

As a Christian school, based in the traditions of the Methodist Church and the Church of England our vision is to promote ‘Life in All its Fullness.’ (John 10:10). By this we mean we are committed to all round development and flourishing of all members of our school community.  We are passionate about providing meaningful, life-enriching and life-affirming experiences that raise aspirations through education, so that all members of our community are well placed to “use our gifts in accordance with the grace that God has given us” (Romans 12:6) to improve all aspects of life for all in our community. 

Intent

At Holly Hill Church School our curriculum aims to:

  • Provide our children with a broad, well-balanced, challenging education which allows every child to thrive and grow educationally, socially, morally and spiritually.
  • Promote a positive attitude towards learning.
  • Ensure equal access to learning, with high expectations and appropriate levels of challenge and support for every child.
  • Provide effective learning opportunities with considerable emphasis on active involvement; with meaningful opportunities for children to develop language and higher-level thinking skills. We offer our children a wide range of exciting and inspiring opportunities with visits, visitors and hands-on experiences related to real-life contexts, to engage children in their learning.
  • Enable our children to develop knowledge, understand concepts and acquire skills, and be able to choose and apply these in relevant situations. We provide opportunities for children to make meaningful connections across subjects, to challenge their thinking and deepen their learning.
  • Explicitly teach the Christian values of hope, honesty, patience, joy, forgiveness, tolerance, thankfulness, respect, kindness, friendship, gentleness and love. We nourish our children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development to encourage our children to develop strong aspirations and a desire to make a positive difference in a society faced with continual challenges that require resilience, understanding and a desire for peace.
  • Actively promote the British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs to prepare our pupils for life in modern day Britain.
  • Support children’s physical development, responsibility for their own health, and enable them to be active.
  • Provide rich opportunities for our children to develop the firm foundations of knowledge, pride and self-belief. We nurture our children’s confidence whilst developing their knowledge, skills, dispositions and values; enabling them to achieve their aspirations and make a positive contribution to their community and the wider world.

Implementation

We deliver the Curriculum throughout Early Years and Key Stage 1 using a topic-based approach, whilst retaining discrete subject teaching.  

In Nursery and Reception, children have daily opportunities to develop their skills and broaden their knowledge in the following areas: Personal, Social and Emotional Development; Communication and Language; Physical Development; Literacy; Maths; Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design.

In Key Stage One, Reading, Writing, Phonics and Maths are taught daily. Religious Education, PSHE (including Community inspired project work) and Physical Education are taught weekly.   Art, Design Technology, History, Music, Geography, Computing and Science are taught discretely as part of a fortnightly rolling timetable. Subject content is linked to the termly theme.

Our curriculum has been designed to take in to account the specific needs of our children and community.   As a staff team, we regularly review our topics and content, considering the views of pupils, through Pupil Conferencing.  This ensures that our learning is current and relevant to meet the needs of our children.

Holly Hill has a mastery approach to the curriculum which provides opportunities for our children to revisit learning to consolidate and deepen their knowledge and skills.  This allows learning to be committed to long term memory.   We also use retrieval practice to recall key information to ensure that learning becomes embedded.

Progression is mapped across the Key Stages to ensure fluency and the deepening of learning. This allows children to master and build upon skills over time in a variety of different contexts.

Our curriculum maps for EYFS and KS1 are found below:

In Key Stage One we follow National Curriculum guidelines; full details can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335133/PRIMARY_national_curriculum_220714.pdf.

For our Nursery and Reception we follow the EYFS Curriculum guidelines available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335504/EYFS_framework_from_1_September_2014__with_clarification_note.pdf

Impact

The impact of our curriculum is that by the end of each Key Stage, the majority of children have sustained mastery of the content, that is, they remember it and are fluent in it; some pupils have a greater depth of understanding. This ensures that our children are fully equipped for the next phase in their education.

We monitor carefully to ensure pupils are on track to reach the expectations of our curriculum and act to provide further support for those children who are not yet meeting these learning goals.

We use Supersonic Phonic Friends to support the reading and phonics of our English Curriculum.  

Our children will grow and develop, becoming confident and considerate individuals who have a deep understanding of our school values, which they choose to live by, not only in school but in their own community and beyond, allowing them to live ‘Life in All its Fullness’ (John 10:10).

Should you require any further information please contact the school office who will be happy to assist you.

 

Our Curriculum Policy