Curriculum Vision

Overview of our Curriculum

At Selwyn Primary School, we believe that our curriculum should offer children not only the National Curriculum but life skills and experience beyond this; igniting a passion for life-long learning.

We will provide our children with a broad and balanced curriculum, one that opens doors to future success and promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of our pupils.

With this in mind, the key drivers for our curriculum are:

  • Resilience
  • Curiosity
  • Ambition
  • Independence

Resilience

Through our curriculum we will enable our children to develop the emotional and physical security needed to become resilient learners who are able to take risks and deal with different challenges across the curriculum and in the wider world by thinking positively and having the confidence to ‘have a go’ and overcome barriers.

Curiosity

We want our children to be eager to learn and confident to seek out information through questioning. Through our curriculum, our children will develop a curiosity about the community around them and the world beyond this. We encourage our children to be inquisitive by providing them with opportunities for exploration, investigation and problem solving.

Ambition

Our desire is that our children be the best they can possibly be and that they challenge themselves as learners. We want our children to take pride in their learning and produce high quality outcomes which reflects their determination to do their best.

Independence

We aim to promote all of our children’s independence regardless of their starting point to support them to develop self-learning and self-improvement both within and outside of school. Our vision is that children leave Selwyn for the next stage of their education prepared and able to organise themselves and show personal responsibility.

Our curriculum is carefully planned to ensure our children are engaged in their lessons and are able to build on their prior knowledge.  An overview of what we teach and how our learning is structured is provided in our Whole School Wider Curriculum Overview.

What we teach

At Selwyn, we follow the National Curriculum.  The curriculum can be understood as ‘a set of courses or subjects for study.  It describes the knowledge, skills and understanding that your child needs in each subject’.

As outlined in the links provided above, all children from Year 1 to Year 6 are taught: English, Maths, Science, ICT, PE, Music, Art & Design, Design and Technology (DT), History and Geography and a Modern Language (ML). The Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum (for Nursery and Reception children) has its own curriculum page on the website.

We follow the Newham Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education (RE) and have a PSHE lesson every week to develop children’s Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship (PSHCE) skills and relationships understanding. 

We aim to provide every child with access to a broad and balanced curriculum that is taught in an engaging and stimulating way.  All the subjects above are taught as either part of the core curriculum (English, maths, science and computing), or as part of the wider curriculum (all other subjects).

All aspects of our curriculum are supported by a programme of educational visits/school trips and extra-curricular events (a mixture of events held at school, in London and across the country).  Examples of both are provided below.

  • Educational visits: visits to farms, the beach, the London Army Museum, the British Museum, the London Aquarium, the Tower of London, the Maritime Museum, Lea Valley, London Zoo, The Olympic Park, Geography field work visits, Go-Ape, Laser Quest, Cinemas  and places of worship. 
  • Extra-curricular events: Residential visits (previously visited: Fairplay House & Michael Morpurgo’s farm in Wales), Selwyn’s in-house gardeners, Reading Cafes, Parent learning sessions, Cultural Day, ‘Proud of Me’, learning showcases, summer Fayres, Science week, Aspirational role-model visits, School choir events, Poetry By Heart Competition, Trust showcase events, Maths Days, Charity events, visits to other schools within the trust

The learning environment

Walking around our school, visitors will notice that it is a calm and focused learning environment. This is especially important for our children who are deaf – although we believe that all children benefit from a purposeful and tranquil setting.

At Selwyn there is a clear homework timetable and children are expected to practise and consolidate their learning from school at home, supported by their parents and carers or in our Friday Homework support Club. Newsletters are sent home to inform parents and carers about the term’s learning, school events and planned educational visits every week – these can be found on the Parents / Carers page of the website.

All Selwyn staff have high expectations of our pupils’ individual commitment, which we believe is paramount, as well as high standards of presentation. We believe that the classroom should reflect and celebrate teaching and learning with high quality learning walls to support children’s understanding and retention of knowledge; reading books to foster their love of reading; topic related non-fiction titles to develop their understanding of wider curriculum subjects and that resources should be easily accessible to develop children’s independent learning behaviours.

How to find out more

Details of what we teach across all subject areas in our curriculum are available on the website.  Should you have any questions, please contact Helen Mawer, Headteacher, via [email protected] for more information.