Our Vision

Unlocking possibilities, making a difference

'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me'

Philippians 4:13

Vision Statement

We believe that because we were all made in the image of God, we have the capacity to learn and to attain wisdom. It’s our gift from God. As God gave us the ability to question things, to debate, to not take things at face value and to use what we have learnt to question things, we value an enquiry-based curriculum delivery that is driven by our ‘guiding lights’ of resilience, independence, curiosity and empowerment. Our guiding lights are personal to our school and are aspirations and attributes that we aim for pupils to develop and experience during their time with us.

These four guiding lights underpin the learning and experiences we provide in all areas of school life to ensure our curriculum, and extra-curricular provision, is enriched with opportunities to learn about, show and practise these aspirations and attributes.  They support the pupils in our care on their vision journey to unlock possibilities and make a difference during their time with us and beyond.

Our curriculum has been developed to place disciplinary and substantive knowledge at the core of each lesson. We aim for children to leave school with the powerful knowledge they need for their next stage, whatever their aspirations and interests may be.

Curriculum Drivers - Guiding Lights

Resilience

We aim to provide opportunities for children to develop their resilience by facing a variety of challenges and persevering in finding a way to overcome them. Through the curriculum and their school life experiences, children will develop the emotional strength and physical security needed to be able to take risks and become resilient individuals who have the confidence to tackle a range of challenges in the wider world. 

Independence

We aim to develop our children’s independence and promote a commitment to learning and self-improvement. We will provide opportunities, and support pupils to, organise themselves, use their initiative, and show resourcefulness and personal responsibility, therefore developing the necessary life skills to work with growing independence and become problem-solvers who are able to nurture their aspirations for the future. 

Curiosity

Through our enquiry-based curriculum, we encourage children to be inquisitive, curious and have the confidence to question the world around them, through their learning. This approach, which provides opportunities for investigation and exploration, nurtures the problem-solvers of the future.

Empowerment

We strive for our children to feel empowered by their growing and developing knowledge, skills and personal attributes to be able to achieve their goals and aspirations through hard work and perseverance. We encourage our pupils to see that they are unique and valued individuals who are never too small to make a difference in the lives of others, in the hope that they feel empowered to be the change that they want to see in our world. 

Curriculum design

In designing our curriculum, we looked at various approaches to live out our vision of “unlocking possibilities, making a difference”. In creating our vision and curriculum we spent a considerable amount of time on initial thoughts/designs, discussing the needs of the pupils and the relevance to our local community. We hold core values of perseverance, peace, service, compassion, courage and unity, which
help us with our mission and are lived in school.

At The Humberston C of E Primary School, we believe the children should be at the heart of our curriculum, making choices about their learning and developing independent learning skills. As a school, we are interested in the cognitive science theories.  We had strongly held views that a curriculum was not to be imposed on our staff and that all members of the school needed to be involved in its construction, as it needed to embody our shared vision and values before it could be successfully implemented.  We also believed that Subject Leads needed to be key in our approach and in the curriculum being successfully implemented across the whole school.  From the National Curriculum, subject leaders led staff in developing a knowledge and skills based progression and assessment tool, which is regularly evaluated and reviewed. This ensures we have breadth and depth of learning, allowing us to work through the skills and knowledge in a progressive way. The overarching topics are planned on a two yearly cycle in KS2 and 3 yearly cycle in EYFS/KS1 ( in line with our mixed age classes) and are sequenced to allow prior learning to be built upon. We continue to dedicate staff CPD and INSET sessions to further support staff in their implementation and enhancement of our  curriculum going forward. On a cycle our staff are given release time in order to develop teaching and learning in their subject areas.
 
  

Curriculum Design Statement: Intent, Implementation, Impact

Our Intent

At The Humberston Church of England Primary School, our curriculum offer gives children the opportunity to live our vision. It helps them to understand the world around them through the acquisition of disciplinary and substantive knowledge, alongside procedural knowledge across a variety of exciting curriculum topics.  We believe that learning is a change to long-term memory.  It is body of knowledge which sits in the long-term memory and can be recalled when needed.  Through the short term experiences and objectives, our main aim is to ensure all that is learned is transferred into a child’s long-term memory so that they develop a wide and deep knowledge base in which to make sense of the world.  

Therefore, our curriculum approach has been developed in order to ensure learning is revisited, and so skills become embedded and transferable, and knowledge becomes extensive, deep, engrained and useable.  Underpinning this is our aim to ensure our pupils
all have the same access and experience of high expectations through an ambitious curriculum approach.
 
We aim to make all our learning meaningful to our pupils so that links can be made that makes sense to them.  Our curriculum has been developed to enable a child to build a web of knowledge where meaningful links can be made within and across subject areas.  We understand that children need to understand what they are doing and learning so that they can link it to prior learning; we know that having plenty of opportunity to practice, develop skills and apply their understanding through different contexts helps learning to become embedded.  We aim to make this happen through ensuring our planning is built on coherent and well sequenced units of work - units of work which encapsulate the interests of the pupils at The Humberston Church of England Primary school, are appropriate, and embody our uniqueness in our locality.  We aim to provide our pupils with a broad, balanced and wide range of subjects and opportunities, but also aim to develop their personal attributes.
 
We understand that at times children will need to be taught learning directly whilst at other times children will need to learn through finding out for themselves. Therefore our delivery approaches will be informed, managed, planned and well thought through, with clear
intentions for choosing each approach.   
 
At The Humberston Church of England Primary School, it is our underlying belief that every child should feel valued and flourish in a wide range of curriculum and life skills. Therefore, we have designed, organised and planned our curriculum to ensure every child receives an appropriate mix of academic and personal development.  
 
How do pupils progress and achieve within our curriculum?
At The Humberston Church of England Primary, our definition of progress is the widening, deepening, recall and use of essential knowledge, skills, understanding – all of which will have been acquired through high quality teaching and excellent pupil learning behaviours. We have designed, organised and planned our curriculum ensuring children are not merely covering content but achieving a depth to their learning which enables them to use their skills and understanding across all areas. Our curriculum design and planning ensures children can revisit previous learning, which allows them to gradually develop a deeper understanding of the skills and processes within subjects, at their own pace and in the best possible way for each individual child.
 
Our Implementation
Our curriculum implementation is underpinned by our three goals in mind:
 
(1) To give pupils appropriate experiences to flourish through living out our vision
 
Provide experiences which bring about the vision and values of our school, and
respond to the particular needs of our community:

• For pupils to experience hands on, interactive learning opportunities, which motivate and inspire curiosity.
• For pupils to take part in hook sessions linked with each topic studied, including school visits, visitors, workshops or class based experiences.
• Pupils to become independent thinkers and learners – having the knowledge, skills and resilience to tackle challenges and find the answers out themselves;
• Pupils to develop spiritually;
• For pupils to become articulate individuals who are able to think and express themselves at a deeper and more mature level;
• That our approaches increase the life chances and aspirations of our pupils so they are open to more possibilities and are able to make more choices about their future. 

 
(2) To unlock possibilities and make a difference
 
To provide a curriculum which gives children the chances to explore themselves, the community and the wider world. In order to do this we will provide opportunities to reflect on their own strengths and areas for development and that of the local community and wider world. We will explore the background knowledge of the world and first hand experiences, which pupils will need to infer meaning from what they read.  It will include rich vocabulary which, in turn, will help pupils express themselves and make a difference. 
 
(3) To provide a coherent, structured, curriculum for all that leads to all flourishing.
 
 - Long Term Plans provide a clear overview of the breadth of topics that will be covered – they map out the programmes of study for each subject and directly link to our subject specific planning and assessment tools.
 - Criteria for progression sits within the National Curriculum and is monitored through our skills and knowledge based planning and assessment tools. These are the end points pupils should reach to show they are meeting the expectations of the curriculum.
- Short Term Planning links to the long term plan and pacing sheet but is adaptable taking account of Assessment for Learning. Timetables are effectively structured to ensure each subject is given the appropriate time to be taught and revisited, providing balance and breadth. The core skills developed within numeracy and literacy are practised, refined and transferred to other curriculum areas, providing real-life contexts to apply the skills learnt, whilst ensuring the curriculum is not narrowed.
 
Our Impact
The impact aim of our curriculum is that by the end of each year, the vast majority of pupils have a depth of knowledge and understanding of the content and concepts delivered, they will remember, recall and further build on secure platforms, year after year; some pupils will have a greater depth of understanding. But for all – learning has been ambitious and transferable so that

the vast majority are ready to progress on to the next year’s curriculum having reached
clear end points.    
 Pupils are living out our vision and values and engaging in social action projects.
 
Monitoring
A robust yearly monitoring cycle will be in place based on the School development priorities. Monitoring of the impact of our curriculum will be robust and conducted at different levels. Children will be trained to self and peer assess their knowledge and understanding. Teachers will conduct formative and summative assessment. Middle leaders and senior leaders will monitor the impact of their subjects/teaching and learning against our school vision Governors will monitor through termly meetings with key personnel in school based on the school development priorities and vision.
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If you would like further information on the curriculum we teach, please contact the school
directly.