Curriculum Intent Statement
The aim of Walnut Tree Walk Primary School is to provide opportunities and learning experiences that allow children to develop as independent, confident, successful learners with high aspirations. There is a high focus on developing children’s moral, spiritual, social and cultural understanding. Our family ethos and creative curriculum gives every child an opportunity to reach their full potential and nurture their individual talents.
We offer a very broad and balanced curriculum so that children not only leave with high standards in Reading, Writing and Maths, but also experience outstanding arts provision.
Our mission is for all children to ‘be the best they can be’ and to leave primary school in Year 6 as well-rounded children with a love of learning, ready for the next stage of their lives, and saying, “I know who I am.”
Walnut Tree Walk provides a highly inclusive environment where all learners enjoy their education and we aim for every child to make very good progress in a range of subjects and areas of learning. Pupils at all levels are helped to achieve their potential. Those who are most able are challenged and supported through appropriate learning experiences.
Those who struggle are encouraged and given targeted support to embed skills, to develop at their own pace or simply to learn in a style that best suits their individual needs.
We constantly review our curriculum in order for it to be relevant and of interest to the children, providing them with the knowledge and skills they need for the next stages of their lives after primary school. We have families from many parts of the world, speaking many languages, with a tremendous diversity of cultural, religious, historical and geographical experience.
We aim to ensure that our curriculum draws on all this richness.
1. Children will leave school with a lifelong love of learning with high aspirations, equipped with the knowledge, skills and vocabulary they need for the next stage of their lives.
2. Each child is unique. Specific talents, skills and personalities will be nurtured so that children leave as confident individuals with a strong sense of identity, saying, “I know who I am.”
3. Children will develop independent thinking skills, encouraged to apply their learning to different contexts and to know they will have their individual voices heard.
4. A lifelong love of reading and books will be cultivated from Nursery through to Year 6 with quality texts used as a focus for learning.
5. Our diverse and creative curriculum will be filled with memorable learning experiences in and out of the classroom, taking advantage of the rich cultural capital in our community.
6. All children will be supported and challenged in an inclusive learning environment to reach their full potential and ‘be the best they can be’.
Arts
The Performing Arts and Visual Arts have a high profile and are a real strength of the school. We have two specialist music teachers who ensure that every child from Year 1 to 6 has a weekly lesson learning an instrument of their choice, choosing from the violin, cello, guitar, keyboard, flute, saxophone or clarinet. We also have a specialist dance teacher.
Our Friday morning class assemblies are an opportunity both to develop the children’s confidence at performing and to celebrate the work that the children have been doing, but also allow the children to be fully immersed in their topic for a week, learning in a creative and imaginative way.
English
Our English curriculum revolves around key texts so that the valuable experience of learning through real books and high quality literature is deeply embedded in the way children learn to read and write.
Throughout the school, teachers plan a wide range of activities linked to these books to ensure that the decoding and comprehension skills needed for reading, and the technical skills needed for writing are given a purpose. Spelling, punctuation, grammar and phonics are taught explicitly as well as through texts.
Children are encouraged to write creatively, often inspired by the texts they are reading in class, and the quality of writing produced is a real strength of the school.
Maths
We have adopted a ‘Maths Mastery’ approach to delivering the maths curriculum. This aims to ensure that children have a secure understanding of key concepts, with an emphasis on number, and that they can apply this knowledge in a range of contexts and to some challenging ‘Think’ questions.
Learning outside of the classroom
Children often learn a great deal out of the classroom. However good the classroom environment, there is nothing like the first-hand experience for effective teaching. We have created an ‘edible playground’ which will provide children with the opportunity to use our garden as a learning space and resource.
We are very keen to give children regular trips out. We are fortunate to be close to places of great historical interest, not to mention some of the leading galleries, museums and theatres in the country.
Examples of trips children experience at Walnut Tree Walk include to the Imperial War Museum, Tate Modern, Royal Albert Hall, Benjamin Franklin House, London Zoo, Godstone Farm, National Theatre, Hampton Court and the National Portrait Gallery, amongst many others. Each year, Years 4, 5 and 6 take part in workshops at Into University, an organisation that encourages children from a young age to have aspirations about going to university.
This culminates in a graduation ceremony at a real London university. In Year 6 the children go on a school journey for five days. Here they learn about getting on with other people and understanding themselves in relation to others, lessons that are important in life both in school and beyond.
Please click on a link above on the right to find out further information for each year group.
