Ashfield is a Compass for Life School. Our children set themselves their own North Star. We encourage our children to have high aspirations and to set their goals and targets. We then help them develop their ethos, warrior spirit and strategy to achieve them. This helps children recognise the relevance of what they are learning. We celebrate all our children’s achievements so that they can be continually supported to meet their ‘dreams, be extraordinary and to change the world’.
At Ashfield we have designed our curriculum to help our children develop active and creative minds; so they can lead happy, healthy and fulfilling lives. We want our children to understand why and how they are learning; and we have planned the curriculum content to inspire them. We believe that an engaging, stimulating curriculum is fundamental to effective learning.
The Ashfield curriculum gives children access to the full National Curriculum. We provide our children with a broad and balanced curriculum, which is carefully planned across year groups to ensure parity of opportunity. The National Curriculum forms the guidance by which our curriculum for each subject is planned. Each subject has its own North Star and clear intent. Each subject has been planned to ensure a clear overview of what is taught, progression of skills, knowledge and vocabulary from Year 3 to Year 6. We work closely with our feeder school, Merry Hill Infants so that we have a good understanding of our children’s prior learning in all subjects.
The wellbeing of our children is paramount. We ensure that our curriculum supports children cognitively, physically, spiritually, morally, socially and culturally and is underpinned by our four core values. In April 2022, the staff team examined what values are important to them and the children in the school. After a process of reflection and discussion, the following four core values were agreed by staff and children: respect, kindness, resilience and cooperation. These values will be taught through our curriculum.
The challenges of growing up in a world of diversity and constant change requires the qualities of our core values so that children can leave Ashfield fully prepared for the next stage of their education and life beyond. The children in our school will understand these four values and seek to live by them in their own personal behaviour and attitudes and enable them to ‘Dream big, be extraordinary and change the world’. We encourage our children to forge a growth mind-set which will enable them to develop life-long learning skills.
The Ashfield curriculum is inclusive so that all pupils can achieve and meet their potential. Our teachers will teach in different ways, through a broad variety of topic challenges, using many stimuli to spark children’s interests and help them to find learning fascinating. Our lessons have clear and specific learning objectives. We realise that children enjoy learning in different ways, and we try to provide a range of teaching strategies to meet children’s different learning needs. Sometimes whole class teaching takes place, at other times children will work in ability or other groups, in pairs or individually. Children are given the opportunity to make links across different subjects and build on prior knowledge through carefully sequenced lessons. Teachers provide opportunities to revisit and review learning so that learning is embedded. Our curriculum will ensure that all children make progress.
Children will all have a Bright North Star and have high aspirations of what they want to achieve. Children will understand and model our four core values so that they are able to achieve academically, physically, socially and culturally.
The intended impact of our curriculum is that children will enjoy learning and make progress, and most pupils will have mastered the skills and knowledge at the end of each year in all subjects of the curriculum. Children will be able to recall what they have learnt and apply this knowledge in their learning. Some children will demonstrate a greater depth of understanding and apply their knowledge and skills in a wider range of ways and with increasing independence. Children will develop a growth mind-set which provides them with the tools to succeed and become life-long learners.
We believe that children learn best from first hand experiences. As part of our enrichment curriculum, we offer children the opportunity to visit museums, places of worship, the library, and other places of interest in the local environment. Our Year 6 classes will go on a residential visit, developing their values of cooperation, kindness, respect and resilience through a range of challenging physical activities. We ensure that children take part in sports competitions (intra and inter) and take part in musical performances. To support this, we offer children a range of after school clubs and music tuition. We prepare children for the diversity of modern Britain by inviting visitors into school to deliver workshops and assemblies. Teachers plan curriculum days (e.g. History day, French Café) where our children will immerse themselves in a subject or topic. We have an active School Council and Eco Council where councillors involve the children in their class to ensure their voices are heard.
At Ashfield, we value every child and will celebrate all their achievements, both inside and outside of school. We want children to feel proud and confident of everything they have achieved. Children will leave Ashfield Junior School fully prepared for the next stage of their learning journey.