Curriculum Statement
At Meath Green Infant School the curriculum is designed to:
We aim to provide a rich, creative curriculum that provides children at our school with the opportunities, values, skills, knowledge and confidence to learn and develop to achieve their potential. We aim to do this through creating a stimulating learning environment where children are happy and safe, instilling a thirst for new experiences and knowledge and a love of learning.
We are an inclusive school and recognise and celebrate each child’s uniqueness. We value their individual skills, strengths and needs, giving them the foundation for lifelong learning. All aspects of our curriculum are accessible to all children, irrespective of their ethnic background, gender, disability, religious or linguistic background.
Parents have a critical role in providing support for their child’s development. Working in partnership with parents and with the local community is an essential part of our curriculum. We provide parents with day-to-day support, as well as information and guidance on how to support their child’s learning and wider development, with our ‘open door’ policy, curriculum evenings and teacher/parent meetings. In addition, we offer an extra teacher/parent meeting each term for parents with a child with additional needs.
Community involvement is an important part of our curriculum and we welcome visitors into school and support the local community, providing food for those in need (harvest), as well as taking part in Christmas and other annual events. We feel it is important for children to gain a sense of belonging to a tightly knit community and to have the opportunity to transfer the values that we focus on in school to help others.
We want every child at our school to:
• develop a lifelong love of learning
• celebrate achievements and embrace new challenges
• be independent, self-confident and motivated learners
• develop the ability to communicate effectively
• value themselves and others in the whole community
• be healthy and stay safe
• take responsibility for their actions
• understand their responsibilities to themselves and others
We want to develop learners who:
• are willing to have a go and not be afraid to make mistakes
• can make choices, decisions, select resources and recognise dangers
• can organise themselves
• can look after their environment
• are excited about what they are doing
• enjoy working with others and sharing their ideas
• can investigate and solve problems
• have a developed understanding of their world
We use clear, focused learning intentions and steps to success as an effective tool in gaining intended learning outcomes. The steps to success are in child friendly language and are shared with the children at the beginning and throughout each lesson. They are encouraged to check their learning against the steps to success to enable them to take responsibility for assessing their own progress.
Staff use effective questioning techniques to encourage children to demonstrate their understanding, further develop their thinking and to assess their learning. Questions are targeted and differentiated to develop each child. In addition to this, teachers plan key questions in advance to support and extend pupils, depending on their needs and levels of progress.
Subject Leaders
At Meath Green Infant School subject leaders oversee, develop, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of their subject within school across all year groups and phases. Staff are committed to delivering high quality learning experiences throughout the curriculum.
Phonics
We introduced a new phonics scheme 'Essential Letters and Sounds' in September 2021 to support our teaching of reading. This provides more consistency across Reception and Year 1 and ensures all reading books are decodable and link directly to the children's phonic knowledge.
Outdoor Learning
Outdoor Learning at Meath Green Infant school provides our children with adventurous activities and challenging learning opportunities outside. All children have access to the outdoors every day to enrich their learning and develop a love and appreciation for their natural surroundings. Outdoor learning is frequently integrated into lessons and can be part of an on-going project or off site trips. These experiences often involve physical activity and promote respect for the natural environment. Through outdoor learning experiences our children develop the key knowledge, skills and attitudes required to learn effectively and maintain good well being. Forest schools sessions are beginning in September 2021 and will further enhance our outdoor provision.
Visits and Visitors
We regularly plan enrichment opportunities to further enhance the learning beyond the school environment and offer children a wide range of educational visits to motivate and engage learning.
We also welcome visitors to give the children another perspective on values, attitudes, learning and understanding. These include charities, local churches, people from different professions and the community.
Lunchtimes
We consider lunchtime to be an extension of the curriculum where children have the opportunity to practice the transferable skills they have learnt during lessons and through the school values. The playground is zoned providing structured and unstructured play and takes advantage of our extensive outdoor environment. A restorative approach is used by staff and children to resolve any conflict and children in Year 2 have the responsibility of being Playground Pals to support positive play and to enable children to feel happy and safe in school.
Curriculum Impact
The impact of the curriculum is evident in the outcomes for all pupils, their behaviour for learning and their ability to lead a happy, safe and healthy lifestyle.
If you have any questions surrounding our school curriculum, please direct them to info@meath-green-infant.surrey.sch.uk