Curriculum statement
Intent
- develop faith in God, and faith in themselves as beings created to be knowledgeable, wise, and creative in His image
- develop love for God and people. They will develop knowledge and skills so that they are equipped to lead through service and play a positive role within their local and the global community
- develop excellence in knowledge and skills. They will develop as critical and curious thinkers, who are articulate in communicating their ideas.
Our curriculum provides a rigorous, knowledge-based education that will utilise material, methods, and themes from the vast wealth of the classical form of education. Our curriculum trains our students to be independent thinkers who know and love the great books of the Western tradition and have respect for the cultural achievements of previous generations. We teach the great books of our civilisation to enrich our students’ lives with the best of what has been thought said and done down through the ages.
Our children will be knowledgeable individuals trained in logic and rhetoric with the expectation that they will grow to be positive, responsible people who can work co-operatively with others while developing knowledge and skills that will enable them to achieve their full potential.
We have an ambitious curriculum, which aims to equip pupils with the knowledge and skills that will:
- enable pupils to build strong foundations of knowledge upon which they can firmly anchor new knowledge and make connections throughout the rest of the lives
- prepare pupils to be highly successful in an academic and aspirational education
- encourage and maintain our pupils’ curiosity by making learning purposeful
- encourage pupils to lead happy and healthy lives throughout childhood and into adulthood
- ensure that all pupils’ leave The Light Christian School being able to read well and have a love reading
- inspire children to be inquisitive and believe that they can achieve anything they put their mind to
- create learners that have a love for learning and embody our core values
A typical school day at The Light Christian School (from Year One onwards) will involve Assembly, Recitation, Christian studies (which often incorporates PSHE and British Values) followed by Maths and English, and then a more flexible afternoon which involves enrichment learning of knowledge and skills in Science, P.E, Music, Art, History, Geography and Horticulture. We structure our day as such so we have a good level of academic rigour in the morning followed by more expressive subjects in the afternoon, we think this fosters a love of learning and helps pupils develop a good work ethic.
As an independent school, we are not required to follow the National Curriculum. We do recognise, however, the excellence of the National Curriculum in many areas, and we will use appropriate resources which align with our curriculum aims.
We currently use elements of Memoria Press Classical Core Curriculum and Core Knowledge UK as the basis of our curriculum, but as the school develops, we aim to draw upon what we have found to be the most effective practises to design our own. We find the Memoria Press curriculum to be extremely good at providing a knowledge-based curriculum and feel that daily recitations are a particular strength in helping students retain facts.
We also supplement our curriculum in subjects such as History and Geography with materials from Core Knowledge UK. This series is based on the National Curriculum although the depth with which it treats some topics is greater and its emphases are at times different. It focuses especially, for example, on knowledge – a focus with which we fully concur. We link our topics together to help embed learning and bring lessons to life with practical elements. All subjects within the curriculum will thus be covered appropriately.
The Curriculum
Preschool
In our Nursery and Reception classes we will follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework and provide teaching and assessment in line with its requirements.
The EYFS is the very beginning of an exciting and extensive learning journey for our students where we facilitate a broad range of opportunities for them to experience and discover the world around them through the educational programmes across the seven areas of development. It is in these years that we will nurture our students to develop effective characteristics of learning that will begin the foundations of lifelong skills as well as ignite student’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning. This is detailed further in the EYFS Curriculum Plan and accompanying Scheme of Work.
Our teaching is structured around the Trivium. As a classical school, we apply the Trivium to our instructional methodology and academic development. The phases of the Trivium are grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Grammar refers to the building blocks of each subject, the basic facts, and truths. Logic offers a disciplined experience of things, teaching students how to think, not what to think. Rhetoric focuses on training students to express what they have learned clearly and winsomely.
The phases of grammar, logic, and rhetoric correlate with and complement the phases of child development. We teach and design our lessons to fit the way God has made students at each age and stage. Primary school children in the grammar stage enjoy games, stories, songs, and repetitious word sounds. Our teaching methods include lots of chanting, reciting, singing, hands-on projects, drills, and games. Middle school coincides with logic, and at this age, children want to argue and challenge and ask “why?” We introduce formal logic and give them opportunities and tools to evaluate, critique, debate, persuade, and present. By high school, students have learned vast amounts of knowledge and desire to express their feelings and ideas. This is the time for teaching rhetoric, the art of presenting ideas, taking what one has learned and expressing it outwardly.
Grammar Stage
The Grammar Stage consists of Year One to Year Six classes (ages 5-11). From Year One, the scope of students’ study is taught in subjects. The subjects within the curriculum are:
- English (we will sometimes refer to it as Language and Literature),
- Mathematics,
- Science,
- History,
- Geography,
- Religious Education,
- Visual Arts,
- Music,
- Horticulture,
- Physical Education,
- Information Technology,
- PSHE including Citizenship, and
- Latin
These are detailed further in the Year One to Year Six Curriculum Plans and accompanying Schemes of Work.
Organisation and Planning
We take great care to plan our curriculum carefully so that there is coherence and progression at every stage. Currently, we agree a long-term plan for each year group which indicates which topics are to be taught in each term, and to which groups of students. These plans are drawn up for the whole year but the class teachers, with leadership support, review them as a team each term, making changes and always promoting best practice.
As the school is developing, we are reviewing our long-term plans on an annual basis.
Maths and English are taught every morning. Afternoon sessions (from Year One onwards) will, as described above, typically involve enrichment subjects. This covers a wide range of subjects to offer a broad and balanced curriculum and help students grasp concepts in an engaging way.
We recognise that classes consist of students with a range of different needs, skills, and personalities and, in order to teach effectively and for all pupils to make good progress, class teachers must take this into account. Therefore, our plans and schemes of work for each year group work to provide a benchmark for age-related expectations but it is within the role and responsibilities of class teachers to adapt their planning and teaching to meet the needs of all pupils through avenues such as adaptive teaching, responsive teaching/formative assessment, adjusted levels of adult involvement/support and challenge to stretch, etc. Assessments should actively inform class teachers’ planning in this regard.
At The Light Christian School we believe that accurate assessment is the basis of high-quality teaching as it allows teaching and learning to be planned and delivered appropriately to meet the needs of students so that all are supported and stretched in the most effective way. Consequently, this enables them to make good progress and reach their very best potential.
At the end of Reception, EYFS profiles, produced in line with statutory requirements, are completed which provide a basis upon which Year One teachers can build. These profiles are produced in accordance with the guidance we have included in our EYFS Curriculum Plan.
In the Grammar stage, assessment will be carried out in line with our Assessment Procedure Policy. Progress in subjects will be assessed as an ongoing practice and will be formally assessed at the end of each year. Each subject will be included in reports given to parents twice a year.
Evaluation is essential for the planning and development of the curriculum. The Joint Headteachers are responsible for the overall school curriculum. They monitor planning, are part of “Work Scrutinies” and moderations, lead Pupil Performance Meetings, and carry out regular learning walks in order to support teachers as they deliver their plans and develop their knowledge and expertise.
The school governors place the quality of teaching at the very top of its list of priorities and it will actively and formally review the curriculum, its delivery and its effectiveness at least annually.
The Light Christian School
Why do we do
what we do?
We want our children to have a strong sense of belonging
As a small independent school, we are able to foster a real sense of community that enables every single member of our school community to have a sense of belonging whether you are a child, a parent or a staff member. We cherish the unity of belonging to our Light School family whilst also celebrating the diversity that our family is made up of. Our small setting means that we can operate as a ‘family’ and as all adults in school know the children extremely well, it means that we can adapt our provision to meet their specific needs.
We want our children to be confident
At its heart, our curriculum aims to foster and develop children who are confident. We want them to be confident in their identity and in their abilities as resilient learners; interested in the world around them, and able to question the things that they see; articulate and able to engage with topics with maturity; well-rounded, in that they have been exposed and introduced to a curriculum that has breadth and depth and can make links and connections with the world around them. It is our belief that confident pupils require a knowledge rich curriculum. For us at The Light Christian School this starts with reading as it unlocks the rest of the curriculum for all our children. We know that reading is a key life skill. From the first day here at The Light Christian School, we are building the foundations for pupils not only to learn to read but to love to read throughout school and beyond.
We want our children to be aspirational and driven
We want our children to be enthusiastic learners with a real love for learning. Our curriculum inspires children to be inquisitive and curious. Our curriculum must allow children to develop as leaders. Because of this, our curriculum places an unapologetic emphasis on the importance of ensuring that our children are confidently literate and numerate, as these skills underpin all learning. We want all of our children to be aspirational and driven to believe in themselves so that they can achieve anything they put their mind to.
We want our children to be kind and collaborative
Our children are taught of the ‘fruits of the spirit’ and the importance of them being kind, considerate and empathetic individuals. Spiritual, moral, and cultural education is taught explicitly throughout our curriculum and assemblies but also implicitly in the way that staff model positive relationships, patience, kindness, and conflict management. The children are immersed in several opportunities to show kind and collaborative behaviours. This is also emphasised in our behaviour system that praises positive choices and encourages restorative conversations.
We want our children to be independent
We foster in all our children an intrinsic love of learning which is developed through a range of techniques – open ended tasks, peer mentoring, classrooms set up to encourage independence and problem-solving activities. We want our children to be independent thinkers which is encouraged through our lessons, assemblies, class debates and PSHE lessons. We want our children to have a strong Christian moral grounding which governs all their decision making. There is a focus on enriching and using vocabulary accurately in all subjects which enables a better understanding of concepts, ideas and supports the children in being able to articulate clearly what they have they learnt in each subject. We do this by expanding their cultural capital and the breadth of their vocabulary.
We want our children to embrace challenges and obstacles
At The Light Christian School we teach a mastery curriculum which means that the children are constantly working to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding rather than achieving certain criteria. We have a shared acknowledgment that being able to fail is vital to children’s success later in life. Having an understanding that failure is a learning process enables our children to take ownership of their learning and embrace failure with a growth mindset. Our curriculum shares with our children, content and opportunities that take them beyond their daily immediate surroundings and offers them experiences across a wealth of different subjects, developing talents and igniting their own individual interests. We want all our children to be resilient so that they are prepared for every changing world we live in and have the self-belief that they can achieve anything.
It is important that our curriculum for Key Stage 1 builds on the child-initiated ethos of the Early Years Foundation Stage principles. Pupils should be active partners in developing the curriculum. Their questions, interests and ideas are therefore utilised to develop and enhance planned learning experiences.
