Explore the tabs to the left to find out more about our curriculum.

Our Curriculum        

What do we want to achieve through our curriculum?

Our aim is to give our children the very best education we can: encouraging every child to reach their full potential through a creative curriculum that is rich, broad, and offers relevant, exciting and memorable learning opportunities both within and beyond the classroom. Our ambition is to develop the cultural capital of all children by providing them with boundless opportunities, both inside and outside our vibrant and diverse primary school. By offering a vast and varied, curriculum, our children are encouraged to ‘dream big,’ take risks and achieve high standards in all aspects of school life.

Our curriculum is based on the National Curriculum which can be found by clicking the link below. We have developed our provision to ensure we provide our pupils with a knowledge-rich education to ensure their success as they move into their next stage of their learning. The National Curriculum document shows the statutory objectives for the knowledge, skills and understanding that we teach at King Athelstan from Year 1 to Year 6 and follows on from the EYFS framework.

National Curriculum Framework

EYFS Framework

What decisions did we make in shaping our curriculum?

When shaping our curriculum, we focused on ensuring our vision and values were central in all subjects. We thought carefully about how to develop the cultural capital of our children by enriching their educational experiences, both in our settings and in the wider community. We also looked at how ideas and themes linked together under a broader topic heading so that children experience a cohesive approach to areas of study. We believe our curriculum is inclusive for all learners as we chose to adopt the mastery approach, ensuring that larger concepts are broken down into smaller, more ‘granular’ steps. This allows pupils to develop their skills and understanding, to grow as individuals and to prepare them for the next steps in their education and future life. Our curriculum is designed with knowledge at its heart with an emphasis on developing a strong vocabulary base and an understanding of the world.. We appreciate that in this rapidly changing, technological era, some children may not come to school with a strong grounding in rich language experiences, a broad vocabulary or a love of books and reading. Thus, our curriculum had been designed to develop children’s vocabulary and love of classic and modern literature.

At King Athelstan we promote long-term learning and we believe that progress is demonstrated by children knowing more, remembering more and understanding more.  Knowledge needs to be 'sticky.’ In other words, the more memorable the learning and the more it is embedded, the more pupils will remember and be able to apply in other situations.  This is why we place particular emphasis on children learning ‘by heart’ and building rich webs of knowledge as they progress through the curriculum.

Teachers use Bloom’s Taxonomy as part of their success criteria for lessons to develop children’s higher order thinking skills; this not only allows a ‘no celling’ approach for gifted learners, but also ensures inclusive practice for children of all abilities, including pupils with SEND. 

Click here for an overview of Blooms Taxonomy higher order thinking skills. 

How does our curriculum fit into our school vision?

Our curriculum fits into our school vision, Inspiring Excellence, as it encourages children to be the best that they can be in order to achieve their full potential and ‘leave us great.’ We enable children to push their infinite creativity through thought provoking and ambitious tasks whilst ensuring they feel part of a caring and nurturing environment that has happiness and welfare at its heart. Through our creative curriculum we give our children the opportunity to, think for themselves and empower them with choices which will prepare them for a life of possibilities, as they are able to access a huge variety of activities both within the curriculum and with our extracurricular opportunities too.

Trips and Visits

As mentioned before, our aim is to enhance the social and cultural experiences our children have to develop their understanding of the world, both on their doorstep and further afield, to enrich their vocabulary and develop good citizens who fulfil their roles in society and who feel passionate about supporting their community. Trips and visits are key to developing all of these attributes and at King Athelstan we plan our topics around memorable trips, visits and experiences. Each year group goes on at least one trip or visit per term and we also invite visitors in to school to further their experience of working with members of the community, authors, theatre groups and to take part in educational workshops.

    Please see the left tool bar at the top of this page for a more in depth look at all aspects of our school curriculum. 

If you would like to find out more about the curriculum offered to your child, please speak to their class teacher or one of the senior leaders.