Curriculum
Exeter Road Community Primary School
What our curriculum is designed to achieve
Exeter Road Community Primary School is an inclusive community, committed to providing an emotionally and physically safe environment that is caring, stimulating, and challenging and where all children enjoy and achieve. We pride ourselves on having a calm and welcoming atmosphere where we take time to get to know each child and value the contribution they make to our school. At Exeter Road we believe that every child can and must succeed.
We strive to ensure that children have the levels of literacy and numeracy to equip them with the skills to continue their learning journey and achieve personal and economic fulfilment throughout their lives.
We aim to provide all children with a broad and balanced curriculum. A curriculum that:
- Promotes curiosity and enthusiasm.
- Develops children’s knowledge and understanding of the world.
- Encourages independence and confidence.
- Builds resilience and resourcefulness.
- Develops logical and creative thinking.
- Encourages a tolerance and respect for others and the development of personal self-esteem.
- Is nurturing and develops the whole child.
We want high self-esteem, confidence, independence, spirit, happiness, enthusiasm, and motivation to characterise learners at Exeter Road enabling them to be prepared for life in the 21st century.
Exmouth is in a beautiful part of the country, and we want the children who attend our school to have a love and knowledge of the local area. Learning beyond the classroom provides children with experiences that enhance and enrich learning: we are committed to children being involved in as many outdoor learning experiences, trips, and visits as possible. However, we also want to provide the children with knowledge and experience of the world outside Exmouth. Our outdoor education programme and residential and non-residential trips are designed to develop this wider knowledge and understanding.
We will work collaboratively with other local schools and organisations to provide the best educational opportunities we can for the children in our community.
We act to ensure positive partnerships with parents, valuing their views and working alongside them to encourage and support their children. Children are at the centre of all that we do. Our staff take time to listen carefully to their opinions and perspectives and ensure that learning has relevance, purpose and meaning.
Thematic Curriculum
At Exeter Road we have a thematic approach to the curriculum that includes opportunities for learning across the subjects in the National Curriculum for all children. These themes may link to worldwide events, such as the Olympics when learning about the Ancient Greeks, or might be based locally, using our community and local environment as a learning resource. We ensure that the curriculum we offer the children is broad and balanced, based on both skills and knowledge, and full of fun learning experiences that will enthuse and motivate.
Each theme incorporates different curriculum areas. Teachers plan exciting opportunities for the children to learn, giving them the knowledge, ideas, vocabulary and the motivation to write. Through a hands-on experiential approach, we encourage our children to be more independent in their learning and challenge them to find out for themselves. We promote independence, resourcefulness, and creative thinking, celebrating the ways in which children use what they have learnt to find out and explore more about an area of interest.
Our themes promote children’s curiosity in the world of the past and the world around them. Learning opportunities beyond the classroom are planned in to provide children with experiences that enhance and enrich their learning. Our aim is that children leaving Exeter Road School will be confident, resilient and resourceful, equipped with the key knowledge and skills that enable them to be successful in the next stages of their education.
Each theme includes exciting experiences to enthuse and stimulate the children, to hook them, to capture their imagination. It might be a workshop, a visitor, a trip or perhaps another activity such as our whole school balloon launch. The aim of these experiences is not only to enrich our curriculum, enthusing children, it is also to provide a stimulus for writing.
Once we have the children’s enthusiasm and have provided them with first-hand experiences from which they can write, we then use good quality ‘Texts That Teach’ as models for writing in different styles or genres and a range of techniques, including elements of ‘Talk for Writing’, to engage children further in their writing.
As part of our curriculum, we encourage children to find out more about the lives of people in different countries cultures and religions, encouraging tolerance and respect for others. We aim to prepare our children for life in the 21st century, to be confident and positive in approaching the challenges they will encounter. In History, children are supported to learn and remember core knowledge in using ‘Top Ten Facts’ lists and make links between different historical periods.
As part of a theme, we often plan in opportunities for children to share their learning with others. This might be by inviting other classes to visit their classroom and see their work, as we did with the “Stone Age to Ice Age” art exhibition, through videos or photos of activities shared with parents or through class assemblies.
Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum
At Exeter Road Community Primary School our EYFS curriculum provides opportunities for our children to develop as independent, confident, successful learners with high aspirations who know how to make a positive contribution to their community and wider society.
Through our child-led, language-rich curriculum we provide an environment that allows each child to display concentration, creativity, energy and persistence. High levels of well-being and involvement indicate deep levels of learning and lead to children achieving developmentally appropriate individual progress.
Our goal is to ensure that all children are happy and engaged and making individual progress. Our curriculum results in significant changes in a child’s learning capacity, leading to better outcomes in regulation, relationships, and resilience. We believe that children need rich opportunities to initiate ideas and activities so that they develop the learning characteristics that will support lifelong learning.
Through the EYFS curriculum that we provide the children will continually demonstrate their ability to:
- play and explore
- learn actively
- create and think critically
We ensure all children are inspired and motivated to actively participate in our curriculum in order that they experience enjoyment and develop the ability to continue their learning journeys beyond our Early Years.
Co-operative Values
Exeter Road is a school that supports the cooperative values & ethos, which, we believe, are fundamentally British values (tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs; Individual liberty; democracy; mutual respect; and the rule of law). We, therefore, subscribe to and try to promote the following:
The Co-operative values of:
- Self-help
- Self-responsibility
- Democracy
- Equality
- Equity
- Solidarity
The Ethical values:
- Openness – nobody’s perfect, and we won’t hide it when we’re not
- Honesty – we are honest about what we do and the way we do it
- Social responsibility – we encourage people to take responsibility for our community and work together to improve it
- Caring for others – we regularly fund charities and local community groups.
At Exeter Road we believe that ‘Every Child Can Succeed’.