Brandling Curriculum

At Brandling, we offer every child a broad, balanced and exciting curriculum which is enhanced by enrichment and personal development opportunities. The school follows the National Curriculum for Key Stages 1 and 2 and the Early Years Statutory Framework, with carefully chosen topics to allow children to gain the knowledge, skills and cultural capital to prepare them for adulthood.

Three curriculum drivers shape and underpin our curriculum, reflecting the aims and values of our school, and responding to the particular needs of our community:

Community-which helps pupils to be active, responsible members of our school, the locality, our country and the world.

Possibilities-which helps pupils to build aspirations and prepare them for adulthood.

Diversity-which helps pupils to be effective citizens in a multi-cultural society. Our curriculum teaches respect, teaching children to value and celebrate the diverse world in which we live.

Learning outside the classroom

To support the development of children’s experiences as well as provide new and different contexts in which to learn, visits are organised in all year groups. These range from simple visits (e.g. local walks, parks, secondary school) through to the more developed excursion (museums, outdoor pursuits, theatres, sporting arenas), all of which are used to ignite children’s fascination and provide experiences that enhance their knowledge and understanding of the world.

Visitors

Children love to learn from different and interesting people and so we ensure that there are opportunities for visitors to come to the school and work with children for various reasons. Experts in a range of fields will work with groups and classes of children to support lessons and take assemblies so that children understand that there are many people from whom they can learn. These experts may be connected with particular agencies or groups but also could be local people from our own community.

Extra-curricular clubs

To support children to participate in activities beyond the curriculum, a range of clubs are on offer throughout the year. Most of these clubs are led by members of staff but some are ran by external companies. The clubs available will change regularly and will be offered to different age ranges.

We do have a particular focus on sports clubs with the intention that children will understand the need to have balance in their lives and to be physically healthy as well as academically able. Our vision is that all children will develop an interest in at least one particular sports related activity and leave our school either being part of or wanting to be part of a sport/club, as they move into secondary school.