Sitwell Junior School promotes a flexible, skills based curriculum designed to engage, develop and innovate all our children. Our curriculum is a carefully planned thematic approach to teaching and learning designed to support children’s natural curiosity and stimulate their creativity.
At Sitwell Junior School, we believe that Mathematics is central to the curriculum of all children. Our Mathematics Curriculum provides breadth and balance and is relevant and differentiated. It is flexible, practical, motivates all children and is fun, thus encouraging success at all levels. Where possible, real-life contexts are used, so children understand how they can apply the skills they learn. We follow a master approach to maths, encouraging children to become fluent in mathematical facts, to reason and to solve problems.
Our aim is to provide a high-quality science education that provides opportunities for practical lessons on a weekly basis. Through our science lessons, we encourage children to develop a sense of excitement and curiosity towards learning. The curriculum aims to broaden the children’s scientific view of the world around them, whilst promoting a love for enquiry and wanting to explore new things.
English is at the heart of our innovate curriculum and our school promotes a love of reading – creating meaningful links to writing and GPS. It strives to progress all children, meeting individual needs, as well as opening doors beyond. English is effectively linked to Talk for Write, inspiring imaginations to develop our rich language and communication skills. It is an embedded tool within our exciting curriculum, valuing and excelling all learners.
We believe our education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world. Our computing curriculum has deep links with mathematics, science and design and technology, and encourages children to use computing skills effectively and safely, which we feel is an important life skill in modern society. We also teach our children about E-Safety. Our annual e-safety week consolidates the importance of keeping our children safe online.
Design and Technology and Art
We believe both design technology and art stimulate creativity and imagination, equipping children with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and produce their own creative work and products. Through these subjects, children have the opportunity to design, make and evaluate products within a variety of real life contexts against a set of agreed criteria. We encourage children to apply learning from other curriculum areas and become resourceful, responsible and capable learners. Our displays in school celebrate many creative outcomes.
We believe that learning a foreign language provides an opening to other cultures and is important to all children, as it fosters pupils’ curiosity and deepens their understanding of the world. Our Spanish curriculum enables pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language through different strategies, including drama.
With regards to Religious Education, our school follows the Rotherham agreed syllabus. We aim to provide experiences that allow the children to understand a range of religions and world views, and to be able to use this knowledge to reflect upon and express their own ideas and beliefs. Through the teaching of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism, they discover, explore and consider many different answers to questions; through this they learn to disagree respectfully and to be reasonable in their responses to religions and world views. Through RE teaching we also encourage the children to engage with ideas about British values, such as tolerance and respect for others, which are delivered across all curriculum areas.
Our high-quality history education helps pupils go on an exciting journey into the past and is delivered through in-depth topic themes. It inspires pupils’ curiosity and equips pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement through a range of experiences including visits, artefacts, drama and various media. Our curriculum aims to broaden and deepen the children’s historical understanding, allowing them to confidently speak about events in history and be able to place them in time.
Geography is an essential part of the curriculum, it provides a means of exploring, appreciating and understanding the world in which we live and how it has evolved. Our geography curriculum explores the relationship between the Earth and its people through the study of place, space and environment. It contributes to the cultural, social, spiritual and moral life of children as they acquire knowledge of a range of different cultures and traditions, and learn tolerance and understanding of other people and environments. In geography lessons, pupils learn the skills of understanding a locality and how and where people fit into its overall structure. We believe developing geographical skills is essential as children live in a world that is wide open to them. With opportunities to travel and work in different cities and countries across the world, pupils need to use efficiently maps, charts and other geographical data. There are also many opportunities for the children to carry out geographical enquiry, as this is an essential part of the curriculum.
At Sitwell we believe every child should be equipped with skills for everyday life and therefore we strive to provide children with a diverse education. This is achieved through the teaching of PSHE which incorporates a cross curricular link throughout school with an age appropriate theme. PSHCE enables children to become healthy, independent and responsible members of society. We encourage our pupils to play a positive role in contributing to the life of the school and the wider community. In doing so, we help their sense of self-worth. We teach them how society is organised and governed. We ensure that they experience the process of democracy in school through the school council, which hold weekly meetings. We teach them about rights and responsibilities and they learn to appreciate what it means to be a positive member of a diverse, multicultural society.
Here at Sitwell we recognise the contribution of PE to the health and well-being of our children. We also believe that a broad, innovative, high quality PE curriculum and extra-curricular activities have a positive impact on concentration, behaviour, attendance, attitude and achievement and develops key skills such as leadership, confidence, social and team building skills. All children are entitled to benefit from high quality PE provision and there is significant evidence to show that this supports other learning across the curriculum.
Through our PE lessons, we are able to provide opportunities for our children to become confident and physically literate, supporting their health and fitness. Promoting competitive sport for all children will gain and embed values such as fairness, respect and perseverance, developing essential future life skills, enabling happy children to achieve outstanding outcomes. With the use of sport funding, we can continue to extend our provision through employing additional sports professionals to help children to excel in a broad range of physical activities. Therefore all children will have the ability and confidence to be physically active for sustainable periods of time and all staff able to enthuse, motivate and inspire them to achieve their very best.
Music is a unique way of communicating that can inspire and motivate children. It is a vehicle for personal expression and it can play an important part in the personal development of people. Music reflects the culture and society we live in, and at Sitwell, the teaching and learning of music supports the children in understanding the world in which we live. Besides being a creative and enjoyable activity, music can be a highly academic and demanding subject. It also plays an important part in helping children feel part of a community. We provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music, to develop the skills to appreciate a wide variety of musical forms, and to begin to make judgements about the quality of music. They are also supported in developing their musical experiences outside of the classroom through the provision of music lessons and the chance to participate in performing arts clubs, instrument clubs and the school choir.
The following information sets out the principles underpinning the curriculum and reflects the school’s commitment to developing all aspects of our children.
We expect to see children:
- Making the most of every learning opportunity
- Concentrating and cooperating with each other
- Showing enjoyment, enthusiasm and motivation
- Undertaking investigations, exploring and solving problems
- Participating in first hand experiences including educational visits
- Asking and answering questions and showing good listening
- Making choices in their independent learning and accessing resources
- Applying skills including enterprise and making links to real life
- Working in a variety of ways including individually, in pairs/groups and as a whole class
- Modelling the Sitwell Seven Values – Resilience, Respect, Resourcefulness, Risk Taking, Relationships, Reflection and Responsibility.
Our curriculum is enriched by visits and visitors to school whenever possible.
We provide all children in school with opportunities for residential visits extending from 1 night away to a three-night stay.
There are opportunities for the children to take on class and whole school responsibilities.
Each class has children who have monitor roles and across the school we have School Counsellors, Power Cadets, Values Leaders and much more.
Some aspects of the curriculum are delivered through focus weeks and days.
Extended School Opportunities
The school offers a variety of clubs for children to take part in during, before and after school.
The Role of the Governing Body
The Governing Body must consider and agree the curriculum, monitor and review its implementation and impact on learners.
The Role of the Headteacher
The Headteacher decides with the staff in the school how the curriculum will be developed and monitored throughout each academic year. Consideration is given to: year groups, comparisons against local and national averages, gender, ethnicity and children with special educational needs or disabilities.
The Role of the Class Teachers
The teachers have a responsibility to deliver the agreed curriculum through careful planning, teaching and evaluation. Flexibility and consideration is always given to the needs and interests of the children within each cohort.
Teachers in each year group meet on a weekly basis to consider the delivery of the curriculum, continuity and issues of progression. Each teacher has the responsibility to lead or be part of a curriculum team. This involves monitoring the effectiveness of the provision within this area and reporting this information to the Headteacher and Governing Body.