At Pooles Park Primary School, our curriculum is designed to inspire enthusiasm for learning, to ensure achievement and to support pupil well-being and happiness. The curriculum is uniquely designed to meet the needs of our children. We place particular emphasis on three areas; Reading, Culture and Sustainability. Each year group will also engage in a major enrichment project in addition to their core timetable.
Reading is the foundation of our curriculum. Word recognition and phonics begins in the Nursery. Expanding children’s vocabulary is one of the most important things we do. Reading for understanding and enjoyment remains a key focus until children leave for secondary school.
Children using Accelerated Reader choose their own books to read, rather than having one assigned to them. This makes reading a much more enjoyable experience as they can choose books that are interesting to them.
Please access Accelerated Reader here.
The school employs a Cultural Leader whose role is to ensure that all children receive a wide range of experiences in theatre, music and Art. This includes visits to London venues such as Shakespeare’s Globe, The National Gallery and The Guildhall School of Music. All year groups study a Shakespeare play and other aspects of British culture. British values are embedded across the curriculum. These are:
Sustainability and learning about the environment has been a key strand of our curriculum for many years. The recent national and international interest in this area is very welcome. We have an award winning garden which is used to teach all areas of the curriculum.We employ an Environmental Teacher who teaches the children how to grow food in an urban environment.
We use a thematic, cross-curricular approach. We provide an engaging and exciting curriculum to embed the key skills, knowledge and understanding of the National Curriculum.
Teachers plan opportunities for pupils to explore and maximise learning opportunities outside the classroom environment. This includes visits to the local area as well as visits to a range of attractions across London. We also maximise the use of our own garden where children are engaged in a range of activities to ensure they develop an understanding of sustainability and caring for our environment.
We place a strong emphasis on the development of basic skills. These skills are necessary for lifelong learning. We have ‘non-negotiable’ basic skills outlined for each year group, which are taught and expected to be applied.
Our curriculum is planned with high aspirations. We provide a combination of direct teaching and practical approaches in order to meet the needs of all of our learners.
Our curriculum is based on the national curriculum. We pride ourselves on our broad curriculum including high quality music and sports provision and place a high priority on ensuring that all children have the opportunity to excel.
We have recently adopted a new approach to teaching the curriculum. Project Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge.