Curriculum Intent
Our curriculum has been designed to give all pupils the knowledge and skills to flourish as learners and be ready for the next stage of their lives. We have carefully adapted the curriculum, keeping in mind the needs and interests of all our children. Staff have created a clear, well-sequenced route to allow all children to build on their prior knowledge and skills.
Children have the opportunity to explore a breadth of subjects through key substantive and disciplinary concepts and to transfer new knowledge to the long term memory.
Our curriculum is ambitious for all children and promotes cultural capital via local and national visits, high-quality resources and first-hand experiences. We believe that reading is the gateway to all learning and this is at the centre of our curriculum. Starting in EYFS, we introduce the children to the world around them. This builds the awareness of their place and their role in the local and world community. We nurture the appreciation of diversity. We teach our children to celebrate everything they have in common and to respect the different points of view, traditions, religions and lifestyles.
At the foundation everything we do at Thornhill are five values, which are the essence of our teaching and learning. These are embedded within the curriculum that we teach at Thornhill we believe that every child will leave our school with the following attributes.
We want our children to be:
Our main goal is to get to know the children and the families to fully understand their talents and needs. All our staff make time to reach out to our families at the beginning and end of every school day as well as through online communication tools.
We provide both before and after school clubs to support our children and families. We are using this opportunity to extend and complement the curriculum and to increase our children’s cultural capital.
We invest time in teaching children how their lifestyle and approach can impact their learning. There is a huge emphasis on physical activity (active mile, a well-resourced playground, competitions), healthy diet as well as social and emotional development across the curriculum. We teach children on how to cope with challenges and self-regulation.
Children are encouraged to have a positive attitude towards challenges and to learn from their own mistakes. They gradually build confidence by working in groups, in pairs and individually. All our staff know how to create a stimulating environment which provokes questions and sparks children’s curiosity. Children are given tools to question, explore and investigate across all areas of the curriculum.