Add to Favourites | Tell a Friend | Print Page

The Curriculum

Curriculum

Our Early Years and Primary curriculum offers stimulating and creative learning with a focus on the basic skills of speaking and listening, reading, writing and maths. In order to equip the children for their whole lives, Blackwell develops well rounded children for the future through the development of personal and social skills, healthy lifestyles and skills for life, including ICT.

We work as a school community on whole school topics, over a five year rolling programme, which focus strongly on the learning process. Each topic lasts for a few weeks and children work towards an outcome whilst developing learning and social skills during their project work. Topics are designed to develop a sense of community and citizenship and an appreciation of the world in which we live. Our Forest School work based on a Scandinavian outdoor learning philosophy supports this ethos. We regularly invite visitors to enhance curriculum work and also participate in relevant educational visits.

Foundation Stage curriculum

This is the curriculum for children prior to and including the reception year in school. The focus is on ensuring children develop in a safe environment that supports their well being, social skills and increased personal independence. Skills and knowledge are developed through relevant and enjoyable planned learning experiences.

A strong emphasis is placed on practical ‘hands on’ activities and the use of the outdoor areas in school. The Foundation Stage has six areas of learning:

Personal, Social and Emotional development
Communication, Language and Literacy
Mathematical development
Knowledge and Understanding of the World
Physical development
Creative development

Primary curriculum

This is the curriculum for children from 5 to 11 years of age. The focus is on ensuring children make progress in the key areas of learning (basic skills) whilst developing skills across the whole curriculum. At Blackwell we foster a love of learning with an emphasis on developing skills for life (including collaboration, enquiry, communication, problem solving and independence) through our topic work.

The Primary Curriculum subjects taught are:

English
Maths
Information and Communication Technology
Science
History
Geography
Religious Education
Physical Education
Personal Social Health Education
Music
Art
Design Technology
Modern Foreign Languages (French)