At Stopsley, we take an innovative approach to our curriculum design. It is tailored specifically for the children of our community to connect their learning to the world around them, supporting them to become creative, critical thinkers who demonstrate empathy and embrace the diverse community of Stopsley and our ever-changing world.

We promote positive learning behaviours which reflect the values and skills needed for future success. This brings to life our motto: ‘Inspiration, Aspiration, excellence.’

We employ a themed approach to the curriculum where connections in concepts and skills are made and built upon across the curriculum, when appropriate. This enables the children to develop depth in their learning and make connections to matters of value in our community and beyond. 

Our curriculum is driven by the following characteristics:

-To ensure all children make good progress from their starting point by building on children’s prior learning and gaps in understanding being swiftly closed. There is a clear progression of knowledge and skills across the school in each subject that ensures teachers pitch lessons and next steps accurately and enables secure and robust assessments.

-To ensure we are consistently ambitious in our expectations when mapping individual provision across the school to ensure all children make good progress regardless of any barrier to learning or individual starting point.

-To develop an understanding of how our children learn best, by explicitly teaching and celebrating both positive learning behaviours and a growth mindset. Children are also taught the skills of editing and redrafting and how to critically assess their own and peers work.

-To ensure children are inspired and engaged in their learning by planning the curriculum through carefully considered topics and themes that link to the United Nations’ Global Goals and develop our children as local, national and global citizens.

Theme based learning

Themes are National Curriculum based using our tailored progression of skills documents to ensure pitch and expectations are high and build on previous learning. They are also planned with the Stopsley curriculum in mind to ensure that children are empowered to utilise and develop their newly acquired skills and knowledge in real contexts that are both exciting and inspiring and enable children to become #changemakers

Below is our long-term curriculum map which shows the topics and themes the children will be learning as they progress through each year group and the main focus of each subject.

Cultural Capital

Cultural Capital is a term used to describe ‘the essential knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens, introducing them to the best that has been thought and said and helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.’ (OFSTED, School inspection handbook November 2019, no. 190017).

Here at Stopsley, we understand that the term ‘Cultural Capital’ can be problematic. Who decides what is ‘the best that has been thought’ and which ‘culture’ has more value? To counter the problems inherent in the term, we believe that the children should gather Cultural Capital from thinkers and artists from different cultures and socio-economic backgrounds - locally, nationally and globally.

To achieve this, we thread ‘Cultural Capital’ throughout our curriculum and school day. We do this in our teaching of the Global Goals, through our curriculum topics, in assemblies, through the books we share in classrooms, through music and art and through trips and visitors (to name but a few). Our aim is that our children leave us with an understanding of what has come before, coupled with the confidence to grow up and create new and exciting forms of culture.

Home Learning

Following consultation with all stakeholders, our Home Learning offer focusses on the following areas:

• Regular reading (ideally, five times per week)
• Practise of number bonds or times tables/division facts for immediate recall
• Practising of spellings and handwriting

Some Year Groups may set additional tasks during the year as required.

At Stopsley Community Primary School and Nursery we see Home Learning as a range of activities that may, or may not, be based on school learning. The following list gives a few examples of further Home Learning activities (not all based on school learning but essential for the development of your child)...

· Telling the time, using money and sharing

· A family outing, e.g. to a gallery, museum, place of interest, walk in countryside/park.

· Learning parts for an assembly or project

· Going swimming

· Playing board games

· Completing jigsaw puzzles

· School-based tasks set by the teacher (more on this below)

· Being an active member of a sports club or youth organisation

· Playing imaginative games and word games

· Learning to ride a bike

· Cooking, gardening, making things

· Ensuring children have opportunities to cut, glue, stick, colour, paint, draw and make

· Fostering a love of listening to and playing music

· Learning number facts and tables

· Playing games that develop physical skills and building models e.g. Lego, blocks, K’nex, etc

Extra Curricular learning

At Stopsley, children's learning does not finish at the end of the day. We are very proud of the numerous clubs that run before school, after school and at lunchtimes. There are a wide range of different clubs that cater for all interests and areas.