Overview of Our Curriculum

Our Approach

At New Whittington Primary School, we strive to work closely and in partnership with parents and the community to provide a safe, caring and inspiring environment where children are supported, challenged and encouraged to be the best they can be. 

Our knowledge and understanding of our children and the community in which they live helps to tailor an exciting and creative curriculum which meets the needs of our learners and which also has a strong focus on the development and application of the core areas of reading, writing and mathematics. 

We believe in providing children with a broad, balanced curriculum which provides first hand experiences and builds upon childrens’ prior knowledge. As such we have chosen to follow the National Curriculum 2014 in all subjects.   We use a thematic approach to planning our curriculum. This approach helps to ensure that lessons are taught in an exciting and engaging way which exploits and reinforces cross curricular skills.  

We aim to ensure that our themes have stimulating starting and finishing points and teachers ensure that there are many opportunities for first hand experiences, including a variety of visits and visitors to school. In addition, we aim to ensure that the children are involved in the planning process and can guide where their learning takes them.

As long as we, as teachers, ensure that the key skills and objectives are taught from the National Curriculum, the interests of children and the focus on creativity and challenging themselves is a school aim. 

The curriculum at New Whittington Primary School is not, nor should it be, focused solely on academic subjects and outcomes.  At the heart of our curriculum sits the children – giving them an exciting and inspirational start to their school life and preparing them for the future is an important aim. 

We promote an understanding of different beliefs and cultures and learn tolerance and respect towards others. We ensure our children understand the difference between right and wrong and the consequences that their actions can have.

Our curriculum and high quality pastoral programme supports pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. We aim to develop well mannered, rounded children who are tolerant and respectful and, by the time they leave us, are well prepared for their secondary school years and ultimately adult life in modern Britain. 

Our Curriculum Drivers

We have taken time to assess the needs of our community and have incorporated these elements into our vision for our education and use these as underpinning ‘drivers’ in our curriculum. These three curriculum drivers are as follows:

Communication: 

Our whole school curriculum links to good communication. It is embedded into and permeates throughout all aspects of our daily school life. We have selected British Sign Language as our Modern Foreign Language, to communicate effectively with our deaf children.

Aspiration: 

We aim for our children to have a range of career opportunities, employment routes, entrepreneurial skills and the ambition to travel beyond Chesterfield. To have limited barriers to success by being resilient, tenacious, creative and confident learners to have the capabilities to achieve their goals. 

Resolution: 

We equip our children to understand and celebrate difference; therefore, they will be prepared with the skills necessary to resolve conflict in a peaceful way.

Phonics & Reading Schemes in Operation in Key Stage 1: Read Write Inc.