Curriculum Intent

Vision

As a community we grow to reach our full potential, grounded on a foundation of strongly upheld core values, care and high expectations. 

We believe education is the most powerful gift - ours to give to all of those we serve.

Our curriculum intent

At Buckingham Primary School, our curriculum has been carefully considered to ensure children receive a broad, balanced and rich curriculum that is dedicated to widen their life experiences and equip them with progressive knowledge and skills to be effective lifelong learners with high aspirations and ambition. The curriculum incorporates the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum 2014, complies with the equality act and the SEN and Disability Regulations 2014.  The curriculum at BPS is accessible for all children, including those with a disability or SEN needs.  We focus on each child as a whole, ensuring that their social and emotional needs are also catered for to ensure that children are well prepared for their next stage in education and for life in modern Britain.  

Our curriculum is underpinned by the principles that:

• As a community, we learn together to be the very best we can.  We learn from each other and our wider community, actively connecting with our local environment and members of our community.
• Learning is a change to long-term memory; children experience a wide breadth of study and have, by the end of each phase (Early Years, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2), an ambitious body of knowledge embedding in their long-term memory
• It is designed to give all pupils, including those with SEND or different starting points, the knowledge they need to be independent learners and to be prepared for the next steps in their learning journeys.
• The curriculum is rich in cultural capital.  This is done by both providing experiences for the children to enrich their learning through trips, visitors and first-hand experiences, and by ensuring the curriculum content available to the children exposes them to the very best that has been thought, said and created across all subjects, preparing them to excel in future learning. 

Our school curriculum offer stretches beyond the national curriculum.  In a fast-changing world, we recognise the importance of preparing our children for the workplace of 2030 and beyond, and we plan for opportunities for children to develop the ‘soft skills’ they will need for their future success, including collaboration, critical thinking and reading, creativity and creative thinking, communication, and the ability to contrast and analyse information.  

Self-regulation and awareness of our own and others’ wellbeing is threaded through our provision and children are equipped with the emotional language to support themselves and others.  This, our PSHE curriculum and day to day practice, contribute to children keeping themselves safe now and during their future teenage years.

Implementation

Each subject area across the curriculum is taught discreetly, as its own ‘stand-alone’ subject. Although cross-curricular links are made, ‘topics’ are not created to accommodate these.  This allows us to absolutely focus on the very best curriculum content within each subject, which has been carefully selected to provide a logical sequence of progression and opportunities for children to build upon prior knowledge and skills. For further subject information, visit BPS Curriculum.  Enrichment opportunities are planned to further embed children’s knowledge within context and this is done through visits/visitors within and beyond the locality, residential visits, themed learning and parental involvement.  Embedding learning into long-term memory is further strengthened through revisiting key concepts, making explicit links, comparing and contrasting learning to prior knowledge and skills. 

We promote a love of reading through many different routes, including sharing time in our wonderful school library.   Through the curriculum, children enjoy a breadth of challenging texts which support them to successfully navigating reading with confidence. The research-based selected texts involve archaic language, non-linear time sequence, complex narrative, figurative or symbolic text and resistant texts (Lemov).  

As a school, we recognise our children’s love of sport and the performing arts. Exercise and healthy living play important parts of our curriculum and has been recognised through us achieving the Gold School Games Award for the past 4 years.   Every child learns to play a different instrument during Years 3, 4 and 5, promoting a love for creating music and performing to parents and the wider school community.  

We encourage children’s sense of community through working closely with parents, engaging in town events such as the Otter Trail, Town Mayor competitions, collecting for the local food bank and dancing at the May Day celebrations, to name just a few.  We show respect to our elders through links with our local care homes and local elderly residents, holding termly tea parties and performances.   We are members of the National Trust, and every year group visits the wonderful Stowe Landscape Gardens each year to enhance their learning.

We encourage ‘pupil voice’ and our School Council work with staff and the PTA to drive and create opportunities across the school.    We also provide opportunities for children to take on additional responsibilities such as librarians, behaviour ambassadors and playleaders, amongst others.   

Impact

At Buckingham Primary School, we strive for every child to set themselves ambitious goals, be it personally, academically or future vocational targets, thus allowing all children to be their best selves.  All subjects have clear start and end points and staff employ strategies to enable all children to achieve and reach the finish line in a way appropriate for the individual.

Staff use assessment to identify barriers and implement appropriate support to allow all children to maximize their progress and be proud of their achievements in school.

These lofty ambitions and care in developing all children to not only be the best learner but also the best person, ensure that the pupils of Buckingham Primary School are able to successfully progress through the primary phase of their education here with success before progressing to secondary school to continue their fantastic journey.