Curriculum

The Curriculum at Chater Infant School

At Chater Infant School we are committed to ensuring that each child receives Quality First Teaching (QFT). We believe that all children should enjoy learning and that each child must be encouraged to be a life-long learner and have an equal opportunity to achieve their maximum learning potential. This is a challenging goal and as a school we are constantly reviewing and developing our practice as we strive to achieve it.

What is Quality First Teaching?

QFT highlights the importance of relationships between teaching staff and pupils. It encourages high expectations through greater levels of support for all pupils.

Quality First Teaching is sometimes referred to as a Wave 1 intervention:

Wave 1: Universal: inclusive, quality-first teaching for all.
Wave 2: Targeted: additional interventions.
Wave 3: Specialist: additional and highly personalised interventions.

At the heart of QFT is the idea of inclusive teaching. Here are its main components:

Well-defined learning objectives for each lesson/session
High levels of pupil engagement
The opportunity for children to talk with their peers and discuss their learning
Good use of modelling and questioning
High expectations of behaviour for learning
Regular use of encouragement and positive praise
The use of visuals to support the understanding of key/new concepts
Purposeful environment
Responsive teaching and retrieval
Assessment- What next?

At Chater we are committed to ensuring that:

Every child feels valued and included, taking into account their individuality
We deliver a meaningful and relevant curriculum that offers rich and varied opportunities to inspire all children
We promote an ethos in which children become creative, innovative and confident
We develop enquiring minds with a capacity to think rationally, creatively and critically, thereby enabling children to make informed choices
We develop children’s sense of respect and responsibility, helping them become good citizens in a multi-cultural society
We promote understanding of their own and other’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development

We offer a curriculum which is balanced, broadly based and which:

Is driven by our vision that our school is ‘remembered for all the right reasons’;
is driven by the needs, interests and relevance to our community;
Emphases and celebrates growth mind set thinking;
Fully utilises our rich school and local environment;
Utilises opportunities to work with our parents and carers and meets their aspirations for their children;
Promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and in society
Prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life
Comprises all learning and other experiences that Chater Infant School plans for its pupils.
Includes all learning and other experiences that Chater Infant School plans for its pupils. These include opportunities for real-life experiences, such as; cooking, fundraising, observing animals and plants grow and change over-time, experiencing live performances, learning through scientific investigations.
Provides children with opportunities that promote higher level cognitive development

Progression of Skills

To ensure there is progression, we have set out the specific set of skills and knowledge which should be taught in each subject over the four years at Chater Infant School. These skills and knowledge progressions are used when planning each subject to break down the learning into each year group. This ensures that children develop the specific skills needed in order to achieve the overall end-goal. It also ensures that the specific skills and knowledge that we focus upon are a clear development of the children’s prior learning and experiences.

For more information on how we do this please click below:

Progression and Skills Map document Jan 25

Safeguarding

As well as preparing children academically, our curriculum prepares children physically, emotionally and socially to support them with the challenges of modern day living in the United Kingdom. Safeguarding our children at Chater Infant School is paramount and a significant emphasis is placed on feeling and keeping safe. We believe that children work best and to their potential when they feel safe and secure and teach children about these ‘protective behaviours’ in class and during assemblies.

Curriculum Enrichment

We believe that all of our children should enjoy their learning and that we must ensure that the curriculum is enriched through a range of real-life opportunities. We recognise that not all children at our school may have the same real life experiences as each other. We feel this is vital for all of our children to develop academically but also socially and culturally.

To see a list of how our curriculum is further enriched in each subject, see document below:

*insert link for ‘whole school enrichment opportunities here*

As a school, we feel that it is essential to use, learn about and learn from the local resources around us. We have established a strong school community amongst our staff, parents, Governors and pupils and have made many links in the local community. These community links have made it possible to enhance children’s learning across the curriculum, provide real life opportunities and develop our pupils’ social, moral, spiritual and cultural awareness.

These community links include:

St Michael’s & All Angels and Church
Watford School Trust
Cassiobury Park
Watford Family Centre’s
Multi-Cultural Centre
Local Parks
Watford Council
Chater Junior School
Watford FC Community and Sports Education Trust

By working with the local community, we are able to offer our children opportunities to become responsible citizens and share these values. As a school, we continually support our local community by raising money, food and clothes collections for local charities.

Growth Mind Set (GMS)

We believe that children learn best when they have a Growth Mind Set (GMS) as opposed to a fixed mind set. We teach Growth Mind Set values in PSED/PSHE lessons as well as across the curriculum. By doing so, we encourage our children to:

Be independent learners
Persevere
Be resilient
Embrace challenges
Learn from their mistakes
Take risks with their learning
Be curious, inquisitive and to ask questions
Work hard and put in the effort
Work in a group
Reflect and improve on their learning

Our teachers are skilled with delivering Growth Mind Set values across the curriculum and provide these learning opportunities throughout the school.

Spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development

We pride ourselves on the quality of SMSC development at our school. We actively encourage children to utilise opportunities to learn about balanced views, how to resolve conflicts in an effective way and to think about the dangers of extremism and radicalisation. They learn about the teachings and practices of the principal religions in Britain. Children are provided with a programme of assemblies and in class learning which have to promote their SMSC and also provide clear guidance on what is right or wrong. At Chater Infant School we actively promote respect for all people and work hard to prepare our children for life in Britain. Our school ethos encourages children to understand the importance of good manners and courtesy towards others and to actively demonstrate this. The children learn about Protective Behaviours particularly to equip them to manage any difficult situations that they might encounter.

Children are enabled to discuss and debate issues in a considerate manner. They are also taught about how to make healthy choices and to look after themselves.

At Chater Infant School, our children know that each day at school is important and we know that they do not actively seek to miss school. They take pride in reflecting about their own beliefs and are keen to learn about each other. Our children enjoy learning about themselves, others and also about the world in which they live.

The children at our school are able to use a range of social skills in different contexts. They are aware of how to behave when on visits and also when working respectfully with other children, visitors and also children in other year groups.

After School Clubs and out of school time events, indicate our children’s willingness to participate in and respond very positively to a range of artistic, musical, sporting and cultural opportunities.

British Values

At Chater Infant School the curriculum actively promotes the fundamental British Values as outlined by both Ofsted and the Department for Education. The British Values have been broken down and matched across the curriculum (particularly in PSED/PSHE lessons). In some instances, the British Values overlap and work very well alongside the values that we hold as a school including Rights Respecting, Arts Mark and International School Award values.

Chater Infant School is working effectively in reinforcing and securing these shared values in the following ways:

Democracy: Democracy is considered to be very important within the school and the children have an understanding and respect for the democratic process at a simple level. They are actively involved in decision making and know that their viewpoints are important. All children are consulted at the beginning of each year when the Class Agreements are drawn up to reinforce expectations about behaviour in the classroom, around the school and also learning behaviour. Children are given the opportunity to vote for School Council members along with other decisions throughout the school year. They are reminded about the importance of one vote and how this needs to be adhered to in order to maintain fairness. At Chater Infant School any perceived injustices that the children may have are dealt with promptly and fairly.
The Rule of Law: The importance of laws, whether they be those that govern the class, the school, or the country, are consistently reinforced on a regular basis, as well as when dealing with behaviour and also through school assemblies. School rules and expectations are clear and fair. The children are taught about the reasons why we have laws and how these keep us safe and also the consequences when Class Agreements are not followed. In KS1, the children take an active role in creating their class rules. Our children are aware that the school rules are there for all children and that everyone is expected to adhere to these. They are aware that these rules relate to their rights and responsibilities.	Individual Liberty: Children are actively encouraged to make choices at school, knowing that they are in a safe and supportive environment. At Chater Infant School we are committed to ensuring that our children develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence. As a school we educate and provide boundaries for the children to make choices safely. Children are encouraged to know, understand and exercise their rights and personal freedoms and advised how to exercise these safely, for example through our eSafety and PSHE lessons. There is also a significant focus on their responsibilities to ensure that they are also respectful about the rights of others. They understand the importance of listening to each other and the right to be able to disagree when discussing their viewpoints.
Mutual Respect: At Chater a huge emphasis is placed on respecting each other while children are learning and also at play. This is a core value that is promoted through our behaviour management and is fundamental in everything we do at Chater. Values such as being respectful and also taking personal responsibility for actions are promoted in classes and also in school assemblies. Class Agreements promote respect for others and this is reiterated through our classroom and learning rules, as well as our policies and home school agreement.
Tolerance of those of Different Faiths and Beliefs: Chater serves a very culturally rich and diverse community and this is celebrated in our curriculum, activities and commitment to ensure that experiences of all our children are valued. Differences and similarities between cultures and ethnic groups, disability and gender and family situations are discussed during class and whole school activities. Assemblies and discussions addressing prejudices and prejudice-based bullying have been followed up and supported by learning in R.E. and PSHE. Children are actively encouraged to share their knowledge to enhance learning within classes and the school. Visitors from and visits to different religious places of worship are actively encouraged. A majority of significant festivals and religious days are observed and acknowledged and there is a programme of visits to different places of worship. Any comments deemed as intolerant are dealt with sensitively but also robustly.