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Barnfields Primary School

CURRICULUM DRIVERS

Barnfields Primary School

Our curriculum is underpinned by five key themes, known as our Curriculum Drivers. These shape the direction and development of learning across the school, ensuring our curriculum is enriched, purposeful and responsive to the interests and ambitions of our children.

Our Curriculum Drivers are factors that we value as a school, alongside our ethos of Believe and Achieve.

AMBITION

At Barnfields, high aspirations underpin our approach to learning. Pupils are encouraged to aim high, embrace challenge and live out our ethos of Believe and Achieve. By promoting positive role models across the school, we broaden children’s experiences and inspire them to see what is possible for themselves as learners and individuals. A strong understanding that attitude, effort, belief and continuous improvement lead to success is embedded throughout school life. Carefully designed learning experiences are rich, varied and ambitious, ensuring appropriate challenge for all pupils. We actively broaden horizons by nurturing children’s interests and developing their awareness of the wider world, reflecting the inclusive nature and high expectations of our school.

RELEVANT

The curriculum at Barnfields is relevant and responsive to the age in which we live, educating for life. Our curriculum provides the children with meaningful experiences, engendering significant and purposeful learning opportunities.  They learn skills that they can develop as they mature, whilst at the same time understanding the key age-appropriate knowledge from every subject within the National Curriculum. We believe that PSHE is vital for pupils to learn how to keep safe and healthy in an ever-changing world. Our progressive PSHE curriculum is relevant to the lives that children live today and prepares them for the future. Wider global issues are also studied (especially in KS2) in order to prepare children with the skills and understanding needed for later life. Children leave Barnfields with a well-rounded education that equips them with the knowledge, skills and attributes needed to be active citizens who can contribute positively to society in the 21st century.  

INCLUSIVE

At Barnfields, inclusion underpins curriculum design and daily practice. We recognise that pupils learn and progress at different rates and are committed to providing a curriculum that offers appropriate challenge for all. Teaching and learning is carefully planned and adapted to remove barriers, ensuring that every child—regardless of background, need or starting point—has equitable access to learning and opportunities to achieve well. We respond effectively to pupils’ diverse needs through quality‑first teaching, adaptive approaches and timely, targeted support. This includes pupils with SEND, EAL, those who are disadvantaged and others who may be vulnerable. Strong partnerships with families and external professionals ensure provision is well-matched and responsive. Through consistently high expectations, we foster a safe and inclusive environment where all pupils develop confidence and are enabled to Believe and Achieve.

KNOWLEDGE

At Barnfields, pupils are exposed to a carefully constructed and sequenced knowledge-engaged curriculum, which has been rigorously designed to support children’s learning throughout their primary education. Substantive knowledge has been deliberately considered according to its cultural capital value and relevance to our children’s lives. It is progressively sequenced, allowing for cumulative knowledge to be built upon. Supporting disciplinary knowledge allows pupils to understand how substantive knowledge comes to be accepted and rejected as truth within a particular discipline. Curriculum leaders have specified the knowledge and skills to be taught in each unit of work within each subject; these are outlined in our subject progression grids.

RETRIEVAL

Our approach within Barnfields’ curriculum design ensures that all subjects remain true to their discipline and are delivered through carefully sequenced and progressive knowledge and skills content, so that learning is truly embedded. Vertical links are deliberately mapped across subjects so that concepts are encountered multiple times, supporting the embedment of knowledge. Within year groups, horizontal links provide opportunities for children to apply their learning from one subject to another. Diagonal links across the curriculum enable children to utilise prior learning, think deeply and make connections across year groups and subjects. Our consistent approach to retrieval practice strengthens children’s ability to develop understanding and connect new knowledge with existing knowledge.