Curriculum
Our Curriculum Vision
At Brinsley Primary and Nursery School, our objective is to create an engaging and stimulating learning environment that ignites the interest, enthusiasm, and curiosity of all our students. This ethos permeates every aspect of our daily activities, from classroom lessons and the learning environment to visits, guest speakers, and extracurricular activities. Our curriculum aims to be meaningful, providing children with a real sense of purpose in their learning experiences. We believe that children learn best in a safe, attentive, and nurturing environment where they feel valued, challenged, and enjoy their educational journey.
Our curriculum is designed to be both skills-based and knowledge-rich. We follow the National Curriculum, but also implement the Focus Curriculum for some subjects, which enables both students and teachers to engage in high-quality, subject-specific lessons. This curriculum is integrated through a range of inquiry and topic-based questions, each centred around a key text for the term. Our approach ensures that learning is coherent and interconnected, allowing students to build on their knowledge systematically. Curriculum sequencing is essential to our approach. There is a clear, logical, and strategic sequence of knowledge and skills progression from our youngest to our oldest students.
Our curriculum has three main aims: Enabling children to know and do – building from a strong focus on knowledge acquisition, including cultural capital, teaching and learning prepares children appropriately for the next stage in their life. Enabling children to question, reason, and discuss – children are able to form opinions of their own; search and find out more; puzzle over ideas that might seem difficult to grasp or understand. Enabling children to create, communicate and share their ideas and knowledge – regardless of their starting point, children become confident to share what they know and what they can do, preparing them to make a valuable contribution to society.
We are committed to the holistic development of our students, recognising that core subjects such as English and Maths are essential, but represent only part of the educational experience. Every aspect of education is crucial. We strive to instil in our students a thirst for learning, independence in thought, environmental stewardship, self-worth, confidence, and a sense of care for the world and each other. Our school values are deeply embedded in our educational approach. We aim to cultivate students who are conscientious citizens, who care for others, the community and the environment.
For more information on the subjects taught at Brinsley Primary and Nursery School you can refer to the individual policy and planning documents below or arrange a meeting with Mrs Wingrove (EYFS&KS1 lead) or Mr Elliott (KS2 Lead) by contacting the school office at office19@brinsley.notts.sch.uk
Policies
Building Our Curriculum
Skeletal Curriculum
Our Skeletal Curriculum is designed to provide a structure for each subject. They are the key skills and knowledge for each subject that we consider to be essential. These are the core of our subjects, the focus for ensuring development and areas that will be taught throughout a child’s time at Brinsley.
Making the curriculum ‘simple’ gives us a focus for each subject. It highlights what makes these subjects unique and the skills that are vital for not only school, but for life. Einstein is reported to have said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”.
Curriculum Design Intent
To ensure that substantive and disciplinary knowledge is effectively covered, we adhere to a clear intent in our curriculum design. Our approach includes the following key steps:
Identifying and Sequencing Components: Each year group is provided with a carefully sequenced curriculum that embeds knowledge in long-term memory, preparing children for subsequent stages of learning.
Focusing on Key Components: Lessons are designed to concentrate on essential components, avoiding cognitive overload by limiting the amount of new information presented at once.
Incorporating Prior Learning: Teaching strategies are developed to consider children’ prior knowledge, facilitating connections to new content.
Supporting Schema Building: Concepts are designed to support schema development, enabling children to organise and integrate new information effectively.
Planning for Automaticity: We recognise that fluency in knowledge is achieved through overlearning and repeated recall, allowing children to retrieve information effortlessly.
Providing Robust Challenges: We believe that challenge arises from a well-structured curriculum rather than merely from the types of activities presented. This perspective shifts the focus from differentiation to ensuring that all children are engaged with the curriculum at an appropriate level.
Clarifying Knowledge Definitions: Subject leaders work collaboratively to define and clarify the distinctions between substantive and disciplinary knowledge, ensuring that both children and teachers understand these concepts.
Types of Knowledge
Substantive Knowledge: This refers to the specific factual content that children are expected to learn. For example, in history, children learn about significant events and figures, such as the Industrial Revolution and its impact on society.
Disciplinary Knowledge: This encompasses the methods and processes through which children engage with substantive knowledge. In science, for instance, this might involve conducting experiments to test hypotheses, thereby understanding the scientific method.