Curriculum Information

Our Curriculum

We are committed to providing a creative, high quality curriculum which provides memorable learning experiences and fosters curiosity, a love of learning and a desire to know more. We encourage the children to use and to value their imagination and recognise the awe and wonder of the world that is around them. We want the children to recognise that creativity can produce solutions to problems and, as such, creativity is a vital tool for life.

Each child, as they journey through our school, encounters experiences and challenges that take them out of the classroom both physically and imaginatively - to expand their understanding of the world, to encourage self-awareness and resilience, and to develop a sense of responsibility.

We exploit our diverse and rich local area to support curriculum learning wherever possible and we welcome and embrace the talents and support of the wider school community including: parents, carers, family members and local people.

The children are encouraged to make sense of the world by making connections to their own experiences. They develop a sense of place by building an understanding of the unique nature of our setting and how the geography and history of our area has influenced the development of our locality and national events. Our goal is that every child leaves Stoke Gabriel School confident in their own talents, with courage to face the future, and a recognition of their own potential.

The Enquiry Journey Approach

Our Enquiry Journey approach to teaching the curriculum is based on extensive research, has been developed and improved over a number of years, and is designed to fully engage the children in their learning.

Enquiries are devised by the class teachers and can be both short and focused, predominately covering one or two curriculum areas, and long and varied, to immerse the children in a theme and involve them in learning objectives for several subjects.

All Enquiry Journeys follow the same series of Enquiry Journey stages:

1. Activate Curiosity                 
2. Discuss, Discover, Decide
3. Let’s Do It!
4. Dig Deeper
5. Share, Celebrate and Reflect

The Enquiry Journey is explicitly shared with the children so that they are able to connect to the big picture of their learning. 

There is a balance of teacher-directed tasks and independent learning opportunities and teachers use questioning effectively to stimulate higher order thinking skills. As they progress though our school, many children will learn to challenge their own thinking, seek evidence, develop arguments, and reflect critically on sources of information. For all children, the sharing of their experiences and the discussion of their learning is actively encouraged, and the ability to reason and to communicate effectively is thus fostered and developed.

The final stage of the Enquiry Journey has huge value for the children as they take a moment to reflect on their achievements, to ‘Be pleased’, and to consider what they feel they need to get better at. They evaluate their experiences in terms of skills they have acquired or improved, the knowledge and understanding they have gained and the personal development they feel they have achieved. This gives the pupils a sense of ‘distance travelled’ and an awareness of themselves as learners, and they have a sense of discovery  - of being actively involved in their learning - rather than seeing themselves as receivers of education.