At Eastwood Primary School and Nursery, we are passionate about delivering a high-quality curriculum. We have designed our curriculum to meet the needs of our school’s context, focusing on what our children need to know. Through this process, our curriculum has evolved into a tool with which our children can better shape their school experience, their relationships with others and the future world they will inhabit. 

Ambition

Our curriculum promotes success in the present, while developing skills for the future. It offers our children the opportunity to experience a rich heritage of ideas, skills and knowledge, with the hope that one day they might add to it.

Creativity

Our curriculum offers children the right to experience, develop and practise creativity beyond making and doing in an artistic sense: we interpret; we experiment; we connect and we play. 

Language

Our curriculum places importance on the specifics of what we want students to learn. It is through careful support of comprehension of language across our curriculum that they can process this knowledge.  

Curiosity

Our curriculum develops enquiry, research and investigative skills, which then empower our children, igniting passion and excitement. We have a culture of curiosity, awe and wonder embedded at the heart of our school. 

Reflection

Our curriculum is built with opportunities and time for learners to reflect or review their learning as central to the whole process. We carefully and deliberately sequence knowledge so that it is remembered. 

 
Supported by our vision and values, these key concepts drive teaching and learning across the school and decision-making at all levels. They drive a curriculum that is planned and plaited, providing learning that connects in logical ways; they drive a curriculum that is clear about what the children will know and be able to do and they drive a curriculum that is clearly mapped to the National Curriculum to show how external expectations are met. 

In the EYFS, we provide our children with a curriculum that is designed to be flexible, engaging and exciting. We believe that all children deserve memorable experiences that will allow their curiosity and creativity to flourish. We value the development of children as individuals and provide them with the skills, knowledge and understanding that they need to prepare them for their journey into Key Stage 1 and beyond. 

Play engages children’s bodies, minds and emotions. Through play, children can learn to interact with others, build friendships, take risks and develop their interest in a range of subjects. In the EYFS, play is central to our curriculum as we deliver learning through purposeful, practical, play based experiences. Our environment promotes independence and exploration right from the start. Skilful adult interactions nurture and support the children as they begin to link learning to their play and engage in quality interactions. We recognise the importance of these interactions to enable our children to become confident communicators. Throughout their time in the EYFS, the children develop a sense of belonging to our school community, through working with other year groups and attending whole school events and celebrations. 

We want our curriculum to demonstrate the richness of the world we live in to our children. It should broaden their horizons and show them what they can achieve. It should open up our children to experiences, knowledge and role models so that we can lift them up out of our familiar context and gain the kind of perspective that comes from encountering new, different situations.

Our curriculum offers a range of opportunities for all learners, regardless of their ages or starting points. We believe that, as long as the conditions are correct, all children seek challenges. We believe the maxim high challenge; low threat sums up our approach succinctly.

We want our children to see the value in making mistakes when they are being fully stretched intellectually - this is when learning occurs. However, we choose to differentiate our curriculum, we do not do this according to 'ability' or put a cap on the learning for some children. The learning materials we prepare should contain cognitive challenge because this is the heart of learning; new material has to be demanding enough to be struggled with.

We believe in supporting our children to all follow the same course of work. A key aspect of ensuring inclusivity and challenge in our curriculum is setting an appropriate pace. We do not encourage speed at the expense of depth, swiftness of coverage over security of that coverage and superficial knowledge at the expense of deep understanding.

We aim to ensure that by the time children leave Eastwood Primary, they are ‘Secondary ready’. In other words, that they are equipped with the essential knowledge, skills and understanding required for their next stage of learning when they leave our school.