Our Curriculum
Enderby Road Infant and Nursery School aims to provide children with a language rich, broad and balanced curriculum. Our hope is that our curriculum will enable the children to shine through a variety of experiences and opportunities where they can grow as individuals and as part of a very special community. The curriculum has been designed around four CORE drivers – Curiosity, Oracy, Resilience and Experience to develop a love of learning within the children through real life experiences allowing them to explore, play and apply their knowledge in many different ways.
Our curriculum is taught through a two-year rolling programme with exciting topics which cover all aspects of the National Curriculum. Topics vary in length throughout the year to offer the children a broad coverage of learning whilst recognising the stage of development of our infant children, ensuring key life events are also supported through learning experiences. Our two-year cycle enables children to secure a baseline of knowledge in EYFS and then build on that knowledge throughout KS1 as they revisit topics at a higher level – connecting the whole school through a joint learning approach.
Intent
At the heart of Enderby Road Infant School is a curriculum which reflects our school’s vision ‘a community who shine together’ and is built upon our school CORE drivers. For all staff at our school, raising standards whilst supporting the emotional well-being of the children is a priority. The curriculum focuses on developing skills or ‘sticky knowledge’ which we hope will stay with the children for life.
We offer opportunities for developing oracy skills as a priority, ensuring that we develop a language rich culture for the children to thrive. We do this by giving our children time to talk as we recognise that this is such a fundamental part of early learning. We plan for and deliver opportunities for introducing new vocabulary and shared speaking activities throughout the school. Children are encouraged to share their ideas and ask interesting questions to help lead the learning forward together.
Curriculum topics are built around exciting books to embed reading and embrace opportunities to develop vocabulary. We provide the children with a variety of experiences, real life and ‘hands on’, to enable collaboration and a shared learning journey. Our curriculum not only provides the requirements of the National Curriculum but offers learning opportunities which reflect the natural development of the children: meeting their needs.
Implementation
We recognise that learning is a journey which requires many different experiences and opportunities in order for the mastery of knowledge to take place. Our two-year programme offers opportunities to repeat and apply key aspects of learning in a variety of ways to ensure that deep and lasting learning has taken place – through EYFS and into KS1. Whilst we teach lessons in a subject specific format, we plan for cross-curricular links to help strengthen the learning experiences for the children and to help them apply the skills that they have learnt.
Curiosity - Curriculum topics are built around exciting books to embed reading and embrace opportunities to develop vocabulary. We provide the children with opportunities to explore and question new topics and ideas by starting every topic with a thinking tub and time to review a sticky knowledge board. Topics have been designed specifically to spark interest and curiosity about the world around them – both locally and in the wider context. (See curriculum outlines)
Oracy - By building in opportunities for developing language such as using floor books and introducing topic specific vocabulary, we prioritise language skills throughout the school. We provide additional intervention as well as planned activities for developing all areas of oracy across the whole school in order to meet the needs of our children. Please refer to our oracy curriculum plan for how looks in school.
Resilience – We have a focused personal development curriculum plan which maps out how we provide for opportunities for our children to build their resilience alongside other personal attributes. By planning specific activities as well as a whole school ethos and culture, we ensure that our children have a holistic approach to their development whilst learning at Enderby Road.
Experience – Our children need an experience-rich curriculum which offers the children life opportunities which they might not otherwise get. We have built in regular focused educational experiences which are designed to enrich their learning journey as well as giving the children that ‘Wow’ moment throughout our topics.
Impact
The impact of our curriculum is that our children leave Enderby Road Infant School empowered to be successful in the next stage of their education and future life. At the end of KS1 the vast majority of children leave with independence skills, knowledge, a rich vocabulary and resilience to succeed in life. They will have had their horizons broadened through their many enrichment experiences which will give them the starting point to build upon throughout KS2 and beyond.
