Christ Church CE Primary and Nursery Academy
An EXCELLENT Church School in all areas. OUTSTANDING Early Years provision.
Learning to live together, together living to learn. “Learn from Me.” (Matthew 11:29)
For every child to reach their God-given potential in a positive, caring and aspirational environment.
Personal Development of each child
Murray completed his sponsored walk around the playground with the support of the whole school! Didn't he do well!
We are so proud of our children who go above and beyond for charity! Murray even made it into newspapers and appeared on the BBC!
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Personal Development (PD) is at the heart of our curriculum. It promotes, adopts and embeds a range of skills that allow our children to become lifelong learners. At Christ Church Primary, we aim to ensure our children become informed, responsible, respectful and active citizens, regardless of their social and/or economic background. We want to ensure that all our children are prepared to manage their lives now, and in the future by developing their cultural capital skills and the knowledge and understanding needed to lead happy, healthy and independent lives.
Having PD implemented within our curriculum ensures that our children are prepared to manage critical opportunities, challenges and responsibilities they will face growing up in rapidly changing times. It also helps them to connect and apply the knowledge and understanding they learn in all subjects to practical, real-life situations while helping them to feel safe and secure enough to fulfil their academic potential. We have high aspirations for all.
As a whole-school approach, PD allows us to create effective relationships between all members of the school community. Having the promotion of pupils’ personal and social development underpins other learning., PD contributes to assist children and young people to build their personal identities, confidence and self-esteem and understand what influences their decisions.
Our aim is for all children to reach their God-given potential.
How do we do it?
The Curriculum
Our creative curriculum enables children to access a broad and balance curriculum, whilst also developing their personal, cultural and social knowledge, understanding and skill set. Our curriculum is built on rich, purposeful knowledge, carefully planned enrichment, wider-world experiences and fundamental learning behaviours and skills. Each subject is underpinned by PD, securing a consistent, whole-school approach. To look further at our curriculum rationale, aims and specific subjects, please click on the curriculum tab. Our Creative Curriculum PSHE and RSE are timetabled into our classes each week. We use the Jigsaw resource and PSHE Association to deliver PSHE. These are grounded in the latest science and research about what it takes to create positive wellbeing and up to date PSHE teaching. We use the Understanding Christianity as a resource for RE provision. We hope that in providing a high-quality provision of Religious Education, the children will value difference and diversity.
Experiences
As part of our curriculum offering, we want our children to experience a range of activities and visit different attractions to support their learning but also develop their cultural and social understanding. To enable this, we have planned a range of visits (internally or externally). These visits include places of worship, workshops, a trip to London and much more! We also invite theatre companies back regularly, who always put on a fantastic theatrical performance for us. This inspires our Year 6 ready for their impressive Summer production!
Please find an overview of our Experiences Calendar at the bottom of this page.
SMSC and Picture News
We are committed to developing our children's social, moral, spiritual and cultural knowledge and understanding. All our curriculum areas have a contribution to make to a child’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and opportunities for this will be planned in each area of the curriculum. We also take part in 'Awareness Days' , many of which are noted on our Facebook and Class Dojo pages.
To find out more about the vast amount of opportunities we offer our children at Christ Church Primary Academy, through SMSC please click on the other website links.
SMSC at Christ Church
Picture News provides our school with resources to continue to create engaging and exciting lessons, that allow opportunities for children to learn about our world, develop independence, resilience, respect and unlock their own drive and passion for learning. Each week, we are provided with a discussion topic and this is on display in the central corridor. Within class, children are encouraged to discuss and debate these articles that link directly to wider-world and local issues that are currently arising and could potentially, affect their day to day lives.
Assembly and Awareness
Our assembly days are carefully planned to ensure that our children are receiving the knowledge and understanding of key events, elements of SMSC, national and local celebrations and opportunities for children to showcase their learning. Also, we acknowledge many awareness days throughout the year. On these days, children will learn about national and international events and take part in short activities. Race, religion and global awareness are all themes that drive our termly assemblies and worships within school. Each year group use their democracy skills to debate and discuss opinions, developing their conversational skills, vocabulary and public speaking skills.
Character Building
At Christ Church, we want our children to be responsible, respectful and aspirational individuals; as seen in our curriculum drivers. To support this, children are aware of the 'Protected Characteristics' and discuss them regularly in class, in assembly and on awareness days. We also encourage our children to take part in a range of experiences (internally or externally) and in after school clubs to continue to develop their talents. An overview of the clubs we are offering this term are found on our website. Oracy is a life-long learning skill and one that we are focussing on throughout our curriculum offer. There are built in opportunities which allow children to present their homework, share their opinions, add and challenge others in a diplomatic way, discuss and debate issues and participate in whole school events with public speaking being encouraged from a young age. For this reason our children are confident and keen to share their work and thoughts! Each year, we utilise our skills and understanding learnt through SMSC and democracy to vote for our new ‘School Council Representatives’. These children have the opportunities to make decisions around school, be part of meeting with senior leaders in school, greet visits and take them on a tour of our wonderful school and much more. We have meetings regularly and further information can be found on our ‘Pupil Leadership’ page. There are a wide range of leadership roles available in our school: Eco-Warriors, Music Ambassadors, Worship Leaders - to name a few! We have been keen to use pupil voice to help our inform our school developments. Senior Leaders meet regularly with School Council and other pupil leaders as we value their opinions. Pupil voice informed the way we designed our playgrounds, our approach to lunchtimes and playtime activities, as well as our special approach to PPA days
Careers Education
Vision
Christ Church CE Primary and Nursery Academy pupils are curious, creative and courageous learners. Through our rich and relevant Careers curriculum, we nurture community-minded, forward-facing international citizens of the future who are ready for whatever the future may bring.
Curriculum Intent: Why do we teach Careers?
At Christ Church CE Primary and Nursery Academy, we believe that a careers education is imperative for children’s future successes in our ever-changing world. The Career Development Framework states: career related learning in primary schools is about broadening pupils’ horizons, challenging stereotypes and helping them develop the skills and sense of self that will enable them to reach their full potential. Our curriculum provides opportunities for children to reflect about themselves, their interests and construct a positive narrative which boosts confidence. This in turn allows them to see many pathways that might be open to them and how this links to the learning that takes place in school.
Curriculum Implementation: How is Careers Education taught?
There are planned visits or experiences across the year from key people within a variety of jobs and careers. The focus is always on open questioning, listening and positive challenges which allow children to become confident and to gain insight from each experience. There is also a wealth of knowledge and information within other areas of the curriculum. All projects place the link to real life learning at the centre of skills and knowledge covered. They look at stereotypes within job roles as well as advancing technologies and the ever-changing types of employment children could identify with and be inspired by. The Careers Fair, that happens at the end of the year, is also another opportunity for a wide range of employers and employees to share their passions and answer any questions from children and parents.
Impact: What will we see from our Careers Education?
Regular evaluations are conducted throughout the year to assess the value and impact of Careers Education on children’s perspectives and enthusiasm for career-related learning. It is crucial to gather feedback to ensure that any necessary changes or opportunities are implemented to better align with the children's needs and interests. Learning outcomes serve as indicators of progress. Ultimately, discussions with the children themselves reveal how engaged they are with career-related learning and how it stimulates their thinking and inspires them.
Skills Builder Champions
Children and young people need to be proficient in eight skills to thrive at every level. These essential skills are:
Listening: The ability to listen and understand information.
Speaking: Speaking about information or ideas.
Problem Solving: Finding a solution to a complex situation or challenge.
Creativity: Using their imagination and creating new ideas.
Staying Positive: Learning to overcome setbacks and achieve goals.
Aiming High: Setting clear goals and planning a route to achieve them.
Leadership: Supporting, encouraging and motivating others to achieve a shared goal.
Teamwork: Working with others to achieve a shared goal.
These skills are about giving our children the resources to thrive in their childhood, to equip children for the future.
The changing world makes them more important than ever. Our children will need to communicate well, solve problems, manage themselves and work well with others. These are skills employers and universities are looking for and will help throughout their lives. Some feel these skills are at least as important as academic achievements.
Careers mapping
It is vitally important that children learn about the world that they will encounter outside the school gates and how they can reach their true potential in the future. At Christ Church CE Primary and Nursery Academy, our careers education is a holistic approach linked to our curriculum, this allows staff to seamlessly link the career to the learning. Children are taught to be aware of their own skills and passions and how they can foster a lifelong positive learning attitude. They need to be aware of the wide range of opportunities open to them by recognise stereotyping and challenging any assumptions so that their horizons are broadened and their aspirations are high.
We use the Careers Curriculum links with the eight essential skills highlighted by the Skills Builder Hub. This means the content is based on thorough research.
Children have the opportunity to meet people in a variety of jobs and careers, ask questions and formulate their own ideas towards path into the future. The essential skills are also valuable in all other areas of learning and encourage children to identify their own strengths and areas for development.
We aim to develop a careers curriculum that provides challenge, encourages curiosity and ultimately gives all learners opportunities to connect their learning with their futures.
Money and financial education
Our financial education helps to reinforce positive attitudes and behaviours in relation to money from a young age. Research shows that habits and attitudes around money are formed before the age of 7. That's why our financial education curriculum encourage children to develop a wise, generous, just, and thankful attitude to money, contributing towards their character development and future life chances.
Our curriculum and resources align with the national curriculum and focus on improving numeracy and critical thinking, as well as key money concepts. These resources include cross-curricular activities for Maths, PSHE , English and drama, and innovative research projects dedicated to making financial education accessible to more children.
Our money big questions build on each other which allow children to develop their understanding at an age appropriate way. We begin looking at spending and saving in (Rec) all the way to how we can use money to help others (KS2). Throughout our curriculum, children are reminded and encouraged about who they can talk to if they have any concerns about anything they are taught in their lessons, but each lesson may have additional information about who they can talk to even they have any concerns about some of the content.
Through our use of positive relationships with pupils and our pastoral support, children are able to discuss in an open a free way their financial concerns they may have and are able to get support through their own experiences of poverty.
Christ Church CE Primary and Nursery Academy School Charter
The staff of Christ Church CE Primary and Nursery Academy are dedicated to providing every child with a range of essential life experiences, in addition to our broad and balanced curriculum, before the end of their primary education.
