Whitehall Primary School Curriculum Aims 

The children in our school reflect our diverse city and bring a wealth of different life experiences to share. Our aim is to harness and develop children’s interests, skills and knowledge of the World and to teach a curriculum that extends and broadens this, ensuring that all groups of children are successful learners in all areas of school life. The context of our school community has supported how we have crafted our curriculum. Underpinning our curriculum are 5 key principles which permeate our curriculum content and approaches to teaching and learning:

1. High expectations within all subjects for all children: At Whitehall Primary School, we have designed a curriculum which provides children with exposure to a curriculum of the highest quality in all subject areas. We plan carefully for each subject area to ensure coherent sequences of teaching and learning in all subjects across the school. Our aim is for our children to leave Whitehall with an interest in all aspects of the World around them and with the skills and confidence to succeed and flourish whilst at our school and in their next phase of learning and beyond. We believe children have the right to excellent learning experiences across all subject areas and as we value our children as individuals, we recognise the importance of giving them the opportunity to discover their own unique strengths and interests through this broad curriculum provision.
2. To provide a whole school curriculum which actively challenges discrimination and promotes equality and diversity in all curriculum areas: We believe our curriculum should reflect the community we live within as well as the World beyond. We aim to provide children a curriculum which embraces, celebrates and promotes diversity and provides opportunities to challenge discrimination and promote equalities for all. Our thematic curriculum is built from the National Curriculum which is then developed further to include wider learning about our diverse society and the wider World.
3. Communication and language development through a literacy rich curriculum: A key element that transcends through our curriculum is the development of communication and language skills, reading and writing. We ensure English is embedded across our whole curriculum enabling children to practice and apply skills in meaningful contexts which ensures a deeper level of learning and understanding. Our termly themes of learning, make connections across the curriculum and harnesses our English scheme of work as a basis for both the application of skills and contexts for speaking, reading and writing.
4. Personal and emotional development and wellbeing are central to our curriculum and educational philosophy and approaches: Personal, Social and Emotional and Health (PSHE) education is woven through our whole curriculum and underpins our approach to teaching. We know that our children learn best when they are confident and happy. We work as a whole school team to develop our children as resilient learners, and therefore PSHE is taught weekly and discretely in all classes as well as an approach to developing our children social and emotional wellbeing throughout the school day. Understanding the emotional development and needs of our children drives our approach to promoting positive behaviours.  
5. Experiential Learning Experiences to generate interest, fun and motivation: : The curriculum at Whitehall provides opportunities for our children to learn through a wide range of first hand experiences. We plan trips within our local area and beyond as well as school based enrichment events and special days that inspire and motivate children’s interest to learn. Through these carefully planned experiences the curriculum becomes more ‘real’ and links between learning within different subjects can be meaningfully made. We want school to be fun for children and the variety of learning opportunities and experiences helps maintain and grow enthusiasm and interest.

Click here to read our Whitehall Primary School Curriculum Policy

To learn more about how our Curriculum is organised please click here

Whole School Curriculum Map 

Our curriculum is based upon termly cross curricular ‘Themes’ for each year group. Through careful planning, the curriculum topics enable our children to apply and practice skills and knowledge across all subject areas.

Within the specific subject schemes of work, we ensure that there are coherent sequences of learning and progression across the whole school. Please see our whole school theme overview for details.