Cornerstones Creative Curriculum Overview

Cornerstones Creative Curriculum - 'educating  for life in all its fullness'..........

Our Cornerstones Creative Curriculum delivers a curriculum to equip our children with the knowledge and skills required to be independent and responsible members of the community and promotes our Church School Values of Hope, Creation, Forgiveness, Compassion and Koinonia (fellowship/unity). It is a curriculum designed to ensure that they are ready for their next stage in their education on leaving Chiddingstone School, while having the opportunity to enjoy their childhood through memorable, engaging and exciting learning opportunities. It is a curriculum aimed at fostering a life-long love of learning, through a highly practical, cross-curricular approach, but where subject knowledge and skills are carefully planned and sequenced so that children know more and remember more over time.

The Cornerstones Curriculum includes a range of knowledge rich projects, which cover several subject areas, with a focus on the development and progression of subject specific knowledge and skills. These include:

Science

History

Geography

Art and Design

Design Technology

Music

Computing

The curriculum is a carefully planned, project approach to teaching and learning designed to support children’s natural curiosity and stimulate their creativity. Subject knowledge and skills are sequenced over 6 years to ensure the progression of knowledge and skills, as well as scaffolding the transferability of knowledge and skills across subject areas so that children can see the links and correlations between subjects. The curriculum also supports the English curriculum in school. A class book is chosen by the teachers, within the year group, that links to the topic that is studied throughout the term or half term. There are a range of literacy opportunities within each project to support both Reading and Writing skills.

The curriculum is based on the pedagogy of 4 stages: Engage-Develop-Innovate- Express.

Children experience ‘WOW’ moments which are fun and memorable and usually take place at the start of a topic to enhance a child’s learning by bringing the topic alive: for example an immersion day; going on visits or having visitors into school. In addition to this, as a school, we place great emphasis on learning outside the classroom. All year groups plan a range of exciting and engaging activities that include taking the children out on educational visits and/or bringing people into the school- e.g. theatre companies and speakers. In addition weekly Forest School sessions incorporate and support the projects being covered.

The Cornerstone Creative Curriculum supports the school’s vision of ‘Educating for Life in all its Fullness’ and contributes significantly to the cultural capital of every child in school.

Our curriculum aims to develop caring and responsible citizens who:

• are secure in their values and beliefs
• respect others
• recognise responsibilities as a global community
• have a sense of worth, purpose and personal identity
• are able to challenge injustice
• make informed choices
• can handle conflict
• have enquiring minds
• can communicate well
• are able to learn independently and with others
• have essential learning skills in literacy, numeracy, science and ICT
• are creative and resourceful
• work cooperatively
• develop problem solving skills
• use, apply and transfer skills to differing situations
• are confident individuals who are able to live safe,  healthy and fulfilling lives
• can relate to others and form good relationships
• know how to sustain and improve the environment and take into account the needs of present and future generations when making choices.

We aim to deliver this through:

• developing a sense of community and belonging and contributing to our community through direct interaction making links with local organisations, people and parents
• equipping children with skills for life, through practical activities and contextual learning
• providing opportunities for children to broaden their outlook on life making links between the local community and the wider world
• holding a flexible timetabling approach to make space for true depth of study through the four Cornerstones of Engage, Develop, Innovate and Express
• enabling children to find their passions and talents through a child negotiated approach to learning
• establishing cross-curricular links to foster a broader understanding
• involving parents in open afternoons and theme days
• bringing learning to life through visits, visitors and theme days
• emphasising the use of the outdoor learning environment to enrich learning
• involving children in the planning and the direction of the learning tasks.

SCIENCE CURRICULUM 

HISTORY CURRICULUM 

GEOGRAPHY CURRICULUM 

ART AND DESIGN CURRICULUM 

DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY CURRICULUM 

MUSIC CURRICULUM 

COMPUTING CURRICULUM