“Put these abilities to work; throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone may notice your improvement and progress.” Timothy 4:15

CURRICULUM INTENT 

At John Wesley CEMP School, we provide a unique and relevant curriculum for all the children we have in our school. Our curriculum is language rich and embraces interdependence and resilience, enquiry and thinking, curiosity and creativity to enable every child to flourish and reach their full potential.  Our aim is to help our children be the best they can be and have 'life in all its fullness.' This is underpinned by a focus on providing essential skills for developing resilient, independent learners for the ever changing world around us in a stimulating and enjoyable environment. When children leave JWS, they should be equipped with the full range of skills that enables them to become lifelong learners.  While simultaneously cherishing childhood, our Christian ethos and values are at the heart of everything that we do. We have a commitment to teaching about global citizenship and courageous advocacy, ensuring that children are empowered to treat all people with dignity and respect.

CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION

We recognise there are many skill sets within our world, and whilst there is a focus on maths, English, RE, ICT and science, we ensure we provide a rich, broad and balanced curriculum to capture the very best from all of our pupils.  Our curriculum is driven by providing a Connected Curriculum that inspires the children’s passion for learning, creativity and the desire to own their education.  To enable us to achieve this, we broaden opportunities by including a range of experiences for the children such as:

• Forest school activities
• Educational visits
• Residential trip in Yr6
• School performances and shows
• Whole school theme days
• Service to the community
• Church visits
• Visiting authors, different religious people, theatre groups etc.

We present a wide range of opportunities to enable us to:

• Promote curiosity – asking questions, delving deeper and analysing
• Develop communication – listening, empathy and relationship-building
• ‘Prove it’ opportunities – problem solving, decision making and exploration
• Sharing views and opinions – visual, spoken and written
• Encourage creativity – innovation, imagination and spirituality

Our school environment is very important to us at JWS, and it is here you can see how our hidden curriculum is threaded into the everyday lives of the children.  Our school Christian values and Biblical story, promote how important learning from each other is.  Our values encourage how we live, are expected to behave and underpin the foundations for our learning. Through these Christian values and our Bible story, we aim to teach the children how to grow into positive, responsible people, who can work and co-operate with others whilst developing their own understanding of the world around them. Our wider curriculum focuses on personal effectiveness, interpersonal and social effectiveness and managing risk and decision making. We aim to equip pupils to live healthy, safe, productive, capable, responsible and balanced lives to thrive.

As we live in a changing world, we understand the need to have an evolving, adaptable curriculum.   We constantly review our curriculum provision according to the needs and aspirations of our current learners.  This is because we believe that all children are entitled to receive a high quality curriculum that encourages the highest possible standards and fosters life-long learning. 

CURRICULUM IMPACT

We aim to:

• Put children at the heart of everything we do
• Inspire healthy children (mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally healthy)
• Nurture happy, well-rounded, resilient children who are confident to celebrate who they are
• Create a safe, stimulating environment in which every child can achieve their potential and be the best that they can be
• Encourage children to be respectful, tolerant and responsible citizens living balanced lives
• Work alongside our families, churches and local community to achieve our aims
• Put spiritual and Christian faith at the centre of our school

ASSESSMENT AND PROGRESS

Pupils are assessed against objective and agreed criteria on their own merit rather than ranked against each other. Pupil progress and achievement is communicated in terms of descriptive profiles.

English and Maths for each year group is broken into three steps. Achieving the three steps together ensures the pupil has achieved the end of year expectations. Each subject area is broken into different components to help both assessment and inform next steps for planning. The end of year expectations is part of The 21 Steps so teachers can always see the national expectations. 

Children have phases of progress when they move ahead rapidly and times when they are consolidating skills and knowledge ready for the next move forward. Therefore they progress differently through the recognised Steps. This is especially true of the younger years and can be quite marked around Year 3 and 4.

For all other subjects we use the National Curriculum to plan the children’s learning and will deliver it to the year groups through our Connected Learning or separate subjects. On-going assessment of the children’s progress and attainment is carried out by teachers on a termly basis.

Life experience and emotional issues also play a big role in a child’s academic progress. It can sometimes be difficult for some children to develop the necessary resilience to make good progress. We always re-iterate, if you have any concerns about your child and their progress, please discuss it with the class teacher.