Trotts Hill Primary School and Nursery
Trotts Hill provides opportunities for children to develop as independent, confident, successful lifelong learners. There is a high focus on developing children’s moral, spiritual, social and cultural understanding. Our vision is for pupils to leave Trotts Hill as assets to their local community and wider world.
We have high aspirations for all of our pupils and believe that with the correct mindset and positive attitude towards learning, anything is possible. We believe that by providing our children with a rich, diverse and relevant curriculum that they will become: skilled readers, confident writers, mathematicians, scientists, historians, geographers, musicians, artists, linguists, athletes, digital leaders, designers and technologists. Our children will love and embrace learning, becoming lifelong learners, ensuring that they are ready for their next stage in education.
We provide a highly inclusive environment where learners enjoy their education. Pupils at all levels are helped to achieve their potential. Those who are most able are challenged, encouraged to expand their skills and knowledge through varied curriculum opportunities. Those with additional needs are encouraged and given targeted support to embed skills, to develop at their own pace and to learn in a style that suits their individual needs.
We teach our children to follow our 3 school rules: “Be Safe, be Kind and Be Responsible”. Our key shared school rules are displayed prominently in the school and are reflected in class discussions, PSHE and assemblies. Our school rules are embedded and understood by all learners.
Our school promotes PRIDE learning behaviours (Perseverance, Resilience, Independence, Determination, Enjoyment) The aim is to provide opportunities for children to develop their character, make links, show self-awareness have a positive growth mindset and have high aspirations of themselves and each other. Democracy is modelled through pupil groups in each year group. Pupil groups are linked to faculties and are established throughout the school.
Trotts Hill’s curriculum is designed to ensure coverage and progression. It provides pupils with memorable experiences, in addition to diverse and rich opportunities from which children can learn and develop a range of transferable skills. A primary focus of our curriculum is to raise aspirations, engender a sense of personal pride in achievement, to create resilient and risk taking learners and to help every child to achieve their potential. Our curriculum is vibrant with a high focus on enjoyment. Pupils have opportunities to enhance and apply their learning in different ways. We aim to develop lively enquiring minds, to encourage independence and to instil a love of lifelong learning. The delivery of our curriculum is underpinned by our vision, values and school rules.
Sport and the Arts have high profile at Trotts Hill, and pupils are introduced to a variety of activities and opportunities for pupils to develop their creative talents. French is taught from Year 1 providing an excellent foundation for language learning. All of our pupils learn a musical instrument in Key Stage 2. We want our pupils to apply themselves to the best of their abilities in all that they do.
We enrich their time in our school with memorable experiences. Trotts Hill provides the full core offer of extended school provision. To promote physical health and wellbeing, a range of clubs gives learners an opportunity to access a wide variety of clubs after school hours and during lunch times.
We want to give our children not only the minimum statutory requirements of the National Curriculum but to prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. We want our children to learn from other cultures, respect diversity, co-operate with one another and appreciate and take pride in their community. We achieve this by providing a strong SMSC curriculum, with British Values and our core values placed at the heart of everything we do.
Our curriculum has been designed around our pupils and places their needs and interests at its core. It ensures the coverage and progression of all national curriculum objectives and is as broad, balanced and relevant as possible. Learning opportunities and assessment endpoints for each year group have been mapped out carefully to ensure progression and repetition so that learning, knowledge and skills are not only embedded and memorable but also unforgettable.
These main principles underpin our curriculum design:
Subject leaders play an important part in the success of the curriculum by leading a regular programme of monitoring, evaluation and review as part of well established faculty groups. Pupil groups are attached to each faculty and help to drive school improvement, this provides a strong foundation and opportunities for children to work in teams and develop social and leadership skills . The curriculum design ensures that the needs of individual and small groups of children can be met within the environment of high quality teaching, supported by targeted, proven interventions where appropriate.
We empower our staff to organise their curriculum as they see fit to best suit the needs of the pupils in their care. Staff develop year group specific long-term curriculum maps which identify when the different subjects and topics will be taught across the academic year. Our subjects are taught discretely but staff make meaningful links across subjects to deepen children’s learning. Curriculum maps are produced for each year group ensuring clarity of coverage with a strong emphasis on progression of knowledge and skills. Curriculum organisation and timetabling enable learners opportunities for constant recapping of knowledge and skills with well-spaced reviews. We deliver a coherently planned curriculum with a progressive development and understanding of key knowledge, skills and concepts, which will be re-visited regularly. The use of Knowledge Organisers provide transparency within the curriculum, an overview of content and also a means of tracking knowledge, skills and understanding of concepts which are regularly re-visited in the form of a variety of retrieval exercises. This regular revisiting enables knowledge to be committed to long-term memory.
Enjoyment of the curriculum promotes achievement, confidence and excellent behaviour. Children feel safe to try new things, they take risks and are resilient learners. A primary focus of our curriculum is to raise aspirations and the desire to learn. Promoting resilience and enabling children to feel proud of themselves are fundamental factors. We place great emphasis on our PRIDE learning behaviours. They permeate all aspects of life at Trotts Hill. The curriculum provides pupils with memorable experiences and opportunities for as much hands-on learning as possible. In addition to this we offer diverse and rich opportunities from which children can learn and develop a range of transferable skills. Carefully selected enrichment opportunities are key to providing all pupils rich experiences to enhance their learning. Developing an understanding of the fundamental British values infiltrates aspects of the curriculum and assembly themes. The curriculum included wow days, immersive hooks, experiences, trips to places of interest, visits, workshops, extra-curricular opportunities and work with our local community.