South Hill Primary School
Building Character, Learning Together
Our Curriculum
At South Hill School, our curriculum allows our pupils to flourish through a nurturing environment, which builds confident and resilient learners, in preparation for their next steps in learning.
Our Curriculum Intent
The intent of our school curriculum is clearly planned and developed using a progressive approach with a build-up of learning, knowledge and skills. This knowledge and skills are mapped out from year group to year group and across key stages via our Long Term Planning documents, which embrace the National Curriculum.
We also use the Herts for Learning (HFL) Documents for our Core Subjects and we use the 'Learning Challenge Curriculum' ('Weave') for our Foundation Subjects. This ensures that all our pupils are taught the key skills and knowledge to support their future learning via a thematic approach which offers breadth and depth and also gives a framework for teachers to build upon to ensure all pupils reach their potential.
The core of our curriculum is based on developing pupils' Reading, Writing and Maths skills and their learning experience. We focus on a strong 'daily diet' of Learning.
Our discrete, subject specific, Long Term Plans for all subjects, devised by subject leaders, help map out the skills of our foundation subjects and allow teachers to develop fun and creative learning opportunities.
Curriculum Maps can be found under the 'class' pages.
These activities enhance the learners' experiences at South Hill School and allow pupils to develop their cultural capital through our creative curriculum approach. Our curriculum allows our pupils to study the full curriculum and full range of subjects discretely but with some planned links across subjects.
Our intended curriculum celebrates a broad and enriched approach through annual whole school planned themes led by our subject leader teams. Events such as 'International Day', led by the Humanities team, is a celebration of language, foods, music, different cultures and dances from across the world. Our Science Day, our Wellbeing Week and our annual Art Gallery are other examples in which leaders join together to ensure our pupils' learning is extended beyond the classroom and their experiences are widened.
Our Reading curriculum follows the Read Write Inc scheme to teach phonics and reading skills in a consistent manner. Matching phonetical books further support the acquirement of phonics. (Also known as 3Ps at South Hill School).
Our SEN pupils access learning at an adapted level dependent on individual needs. Some children have a personalised curriculum which is tailored but based around whole class learning wherever possible and also follows their individualised 'Passport to Success'. Accessibility across our school can be seen via our Whole School Provision Maps based on the four broad areas of need:
Underpinning our intended curriculum and deeply rooted in our ethos is the wellbeing of our pupils. For our pupils to access the curriculum, they must be in a nurturing and supporting environment. Our curriculum design incorporates a therapeutic behaviour approach and citizenship echoed through 'The South Hill Way'.