Designing the Stopsley Curriculum

Our curriculum is tailored to meet the needs of the children of Stopsley and it reflects the school’s vision and values.

The National Curriculum states that each school should have...
'A school curriculum that comprises all learning and other experiences that each school plans for its pupils. The National cCrriculum forms one part of the school curriculum.'

In designing our curriculum, we used academic research to guide our thinking. One of the strongest messages that resonates with us is that: “Schools need to focus on developing character skills alongside improving their pupil’s academic attainment. It is not a question of either/or. Schools need to be doing both.” (Social Mobility Commission Report).

Defining our vision and aims.

When designing our curriculum, we started by asking everyone in our community, the staff, governors, parents and children, "What do we want children to leave with from their time at our school?' We focused on specific attributes which fed into our vision statement.

Preparing our children with skills for later life 

According to a report by former US Secretary of Education Richard Riley…

"The top ten in demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems yet."

Our Curriculum prepares pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life and with the fast changing world in which we live, it has a focus on key skills.

“When we talk about education in this country, our first thoughts turn exclusively to exam results and academic achievement… If our education system focused on the 'soft skills', young people would leave school better equipped to face life and its challenges” (All Party Parliamentary Group)

Research identifies the following skills and attributes that are most highly desired by industry leaders:

• Flexibility and adaptability
• A good mix of qualifications, practical skills and personal qualities
• Good interpersonal skills
• Ability to solve problems and create new ideas
• Take responsibility and show initiative
• Apply technology purposefully

(QCA Futures Study)

Our curriculum develops and refines these skills throughout the children's time here at Stopsley in a structure that delivers much more than simply a set of subject based skills. “Content is not the heart land of the curriculum. The centre to which everything in it must always be returning is the sort of people we want our students to become.” (An Aims Based Curriculum by M Reiss J White)

We use the correct vehicles to deliver our curriculum through. Learning at Stopsley is linked to the Global Development Goals and this approach is encompassed by the following statement from educator Guy Claxton who says, "If the core purpose of education is to give young people a useful apprenticeship in real-life learning, then the kinds of learning they do in school has to match the kinds of learning that people do in the wider world'" (What’s the point of school? pg 91).

Our curriculum also has a huge emphasis on our Heart Values, our Learning Behaviours, PSHE and wellbeing.

You can download or view a copy of each year group's most recent curriculum newsletter below...