Intention of our Curriculum

Our school vision statement is: ‘We care, we learn, we achieve.’

Our vision is for an inclusive team of staff and pupils who:

• Are happy, confident, self-motivated individuals
• Are respectful, responsible, community-minded citizens
• Have high aspirations to become articulate, literate and numerate
• And are creative, independent, lifelong learners.

Context

Our children come from the Big Worle ‘Blue Zone’ which is a socially deprived area of Worle, a suburb of the Victorian seaside town of Weston-super-Mare. Our funded nursery and preschool provides for those entitled to two-year-old funding, so we support their early language development and social skills. We also have an increasing number of pupils who arrive at school with English as an additional language or who are new to English, now 30% of the school population.

Our pupils live in a world that requires them to develop:

• Positive healthy relationships and a network to enable them to thrive and feel safe,
• Acceptance of themselves, and others, as individuals with different talents and skills, yet with a sense of the ability to change things for the better in their lives,
• Vocabulary and communication skills,
• Early development of speaking and reading English
• Healthy and active lifestyles
• Courage to try new experiences

 

Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed to challenge, engage and motivate so that we successfully educate the ‘citizens of the future.’ As such, we want to ensure that we provide progressive opportunities to develop the skills and knowledge so all our pupils become articulate, literate and numerate lifelong learners who are ready for the next stage of their education.

Our knowledge rich curriculum encompasses the National Curriculum, providing a broad, balanced and challenging learning sequence. Units of work are subject specific to ensure progression of knowledge, skills and vocabulary within that subject. It has been constructed so that key skills are developed, practised and revisited frequently to support memory and embed learning.

Reading will always be at the heart of our curriculum. We believe that learning to read is a magical experience which opens the doors to endless possibilities and lifelong learning. We are committed to ensuring that all pupils will learn to read, regardless of their background, needs or abilities. All pupils, including those with English as an additional language, will make sufficient progress to meet or exceed age-related expectations and be able to access the full curriculum offer.

We use a range of strategies including using Knowledge organisers, quizzing and big writes to consolidate previous years learning. Some knowledge is built on every year, e.g. animals and their habitats, some is revisited in alternate years in KS2, e.g. electricity. In our foundation subjects such as History and Geography we have identified substantive concepts such as Monarchy, Democracy, Climate and Contrasting Localities, which underpin the disciplinary knowledge so that the concepts link and build on previous learning, enabling pupils to build schema and remember more.

Our curriculum enables us to celebrate diversity, encourage respect and build a sense of community. We believe that a healthy, safe and caring environment is a precursor to raising achievement and attainment. We are committed to promoting good lifestyle choices such as positive relationships, healthy eating and physical activity.

We are proactive in supporting our pupils with Adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and the  Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy (PACE) approach is an embedded part of our practice.

 

Wider Curriculum

Due to the location, socio-economic demographic and context of the school, it is imperative that the curriculum and the wider opportunities provide rich and memorable experiences for the pupils. Without this broad exposure to try new experiences, many pupils would not have the courage or opportunity to find their own talents. The Becket pledge is a commitment to provide experiences for the pupils during their time at Becket in order to expand their personal development.

Our school is a caring community, which develops children’s integrity and provides opportunities for moral action. PSHE (personal, social, and health education) and core British values underpin this. We have a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum that respects all learners and helps them succeed, which fosters self-motivation and perseverance. All staff share responsibility for developing and modelling ethical behaviour and the school engages families and community partners in character initiatives, such as  charity fundraising. We provide plenty of opportunities for each child to find their strengths whether that is within the main curriculum or inspired by it. This may be through music lessons, Mendip outdoor pursuit experiences, forest school, gardening, being healthy and active, Kaleidoscope shared events and residential camp.

 

Character Education  

Our values are central in all that we do. We recognise the uniqueness and achievement of every member of our school family. We are aware that due to the context of our school it is necessary to build ‘Cultural capital’. We try to maximise every opportunity to build this, so our school ‘houses’ are names of local rivers (Axe, Banwell, Brue and Usk). Our classes are named after world explorers, ensure chronology as the pupils move up through the school – each year learning a little about how and where the explorers have travelled. (YR-Marco Polo, Y1- Christopher Columbus,  Y2 – Vasco De Gama, Y3 -  Francis Drake, Y4 -Jeanne Baret, Y5- Amy Johnson, Y6 - Tim Peake)

 

Community

School Community

We build a sense of community throughout the time the pupils attend Becket School. This starts within the classroom, with a clear Behaviour curriculum, which builds expectation of how to behave. This is clearly modelled by all adults throughout the school, and by older pupils when different ages come together. The pupils meet across the school through our Reading groups, pupil voice councils and through various sports events.

Multi-Academy Trust Community

Our wider Kaleidoscope Multi Academy Trust community is built through a wide variety of events at all levels. Headteachers meet fortnightly and subject leaders meet regularly depending on the curriculum focus. The pupils participate in a range of opportunities from a maths festival, spelling bee, a variety of sports events including athletics, netball, boccia and archery, and a singing and social event for the Y6 pupils to meet others from their new secondary schools prior to transition. The schools also participate in authority wide events such the dance festival in the local playhouse and singing festivals with other local schools.

Wider Community

Becket interacts with the wider community in a number of ways. We have good relationships with the Local Authority through social care, family support and health visitor meetings. We regularly have the PCSO into school to reinforce our PSHE curriculum, including Mini-police for our Year 5 pupils.

We link with the local library, through the Summer Reading Challenge, our Reception class visiting the library and a visit to the local church.

We are also involved in a link project with ‘Big Worle’ having established a joint garden project between the school and local community. This exciting venture has seen the installation of a green house, summer house, tool shed and raised beds which are used for the local volunteers to support the school in growing fruit and vegetables to support the local residents.

International Community

The children in year 2 do a link project with its partner school learning from first hand experiences of visiting Dabaso, in Kenya when completing their contrasting non- European country for their Geography unit.