The point of contact for the school curriculum is: Alan Brown (office@cauntondeanhole.notts.sch.uk)
Curriculum Aims
Curriculum Intent
At Caunton Dean Hole our aim is to develop our children into citizens of the future with our carefully thought out content and ambitious curriculum design. Our progressive curriculum is carefully mapped by substantive and disciplinary knowledge; covering fewer things in greater depth so that children know more, remember more and can do and say more. We want our children to produce exceptional outcomes whilst developing their independence, curiosity and resilience. It is our intention to produce collaborators, innovators, leaders and most importantly, good citizens. We understand it is vital for every child to succeed academically, but that they also need to develop well both personally, socially and spiritually if they are going to lead fulfilled and happy professional and personal lives.
Leaders have worked collaboratively to design a progressive curriculum that is well organised, starting with strong links to the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework. The curriculum is planned to ensure that our teaching not merely covers expectations but achieves a depth of learning which enables the children to use their knowledge, skills and understanding in all subjects through a mastery approach. This ensures that children are able to revisit and retrieve previous learning, which allows them a deeper understanding of the key knowledge, skills and processes within subject disciplines and make connections between them. We take the time to include Trust planned theme weeks/days, which allows children the opportunity to immerse themselves in subjects and to develop their knowledge and skills in depth.
Our curriculum begins in the EYFS with an aim to build strong foundations rooted in academic success as well as moral and spiritual development, so that ultimately our pupils can be successful, happy, curious life-long learners. They can only do that if we embed the right habits for learning through the Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning – Play and Exploration, Active Learning and Creative and Critical Thinking. Some of our pupils arrive with complex needs and we teach them how to interact and meet our high expectations by working together and being kind. As such, we prioritise personal, social and emotional development and communication and language in the EYFS curriculum. Our enabling environment and warm, skilful adult interactions support the children as they begin to link learning to their play and exploration. In EYFS, we invest time and energy into helping pupils develop a love of reading, writing, oracy and number. This is delivered through a holistic curriculum which maximises opportunities for meaningful cross-curricular links and learning experiences as well as promoting the unique child by offering extended periods of play and sustained thinking following children’s interests and ideas. We value imagination and creativity and seek to create a sense of enjoyment and fascination in learning through continuous indoor and outdoor provision, alongside trips and visits.
As children progress from Early Years Foundation Stage to the National Curriculum, we continue to place reading at the heart of the curriculum as it purposefully underpins our wider curriculum design. We believe in exposing our children to quality texts, which open up the literary world and the contexts, knowledge and vocabulary within them, enable our children to build a love of reading. Children follow the rigorous and highly successful synthetic phonics program, Little Wandle, so that they meet good outcomes for reading. Our knowledgeable and skilful teachers ensure that through quality first teaching, every child is included in all subjects by ensuring their needs are met in the classroom and barriers removed. Our inclusive approach means that all children learn together but we have a range of additional intervention and support to enhance and scaffold children who may not be reaching their potential through catch up and keep up interventions. Our teachers have an excellent understanding of our pupils and use careful analysis and discussion about their backgrounds, life experiences and culture to help us to design a curriculum offer that celebrates their strengths and helps to enhance and widen experiences that they may or may not have outside of school. We do not narrow the curriculum at Caunton Dean Hole C of E Primary School because we believe that every child is entitled to experience both the artistic, physical and spiritual pleasures that the wide range of curriculum subjects provide.
Our enhanced curriculum goes beyond the classroom through a range of experiences and opportunities to learn and use new knowledge and build cultural capital, inspiring our children to experience new things, building their confidence and raising their self-esteem (Year 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 Residential Program). We believe our pupils will be ready to successfully meet the challenges of the next stage of their education and their lives through our outward-facing approach, equipping our children with the skills and strategies they need to facilitate their own learning. The range of experiences we offer support our children academically, but we also ensure that their spiritual, moral, social and cultural needs are met. At Caunton Dean Hole we are privileged to be able to provide a dedicated Kindness Curriculum which also supports and enhances our Relationships & Health Education underpinned by our PSHE curriculum. We are supporting our children to grow in confidence, self-belief and resilience. This will help them to lead a happy and fulfilled lives by encouraging them to always aim high and work towards achieving their aspirations. Everything we do is underpinned by our vision to inspire, to raise aspirations and to create brighter tomorrows.