Curriculum Intent

We are a friendly village school with incredible children who learn every day within a safe, stimulating and nurturing environment. We put the children at the centre of everything we do, valuing and cherishing every pupil. Our vision is to be outstanding in all areas of school life and high standards are achieved by promoting a school ethos of “striving to be better every day”. We do this by ensuring the curriculum provides the knowledge and skills required and also by encouraging children to build their self-confidence and independence which is underpinned by our core values. Pupils and staff constantly adhere to these school values: Kindness, Co-operation, Respect, Perseverance, Ambition, Sportsmanship, Pride, Honesty, Courage and Responsibility.

Gretton Primary School's curriculum is developed around the Brooke Weston Trust rationale of Ambition For All.

At Gretton School, we ensure that children quickly acquire reading skills, a secure understanding of English and mathematical fluency. Reading is prioritised to allow pupils to access the full curriculum offer.  We have developed a coherent and carefully structured curriculum which cumulatively builds on prior knowledge to ensure that children can do more, know more and remember more.  We aim for high academic achievement within our inspiring and engaging curriculum which is designed to maximise children's learning by inspiring enquiring minds and a love of learning, so that children are motivated to achieve their very best and flourish.  We ensure that all pupils are constantly motivated and challenged and we give them the confidence to push themselves out of their comfort zones and not be afraid to make mistakes. 

When planning our curriculum we consider what we want our children to know, understand, communicate and remember. We work hard to remove any barriers to learning and we enhance the curriculum offer where necessary, so that, regardless of any vulnerabilities, all children can succeed. 

Curriculum Implementation

In the planning and delivery of our curriculum, we aim to teach children the skills to be historians, geographers, artists and musicians through a sequence of carefully planned and structured topics. We have recently developed new skills and knowledge documents which ensure that we teach the correct depth of coverage across the school in each curriculum area. 

We have a highly skilled staff who work incredibly hard to deliver and assess an exciting curriculum. Teachers and leaders reflect on our curriculum regularly, adapting it to meet the needs and interests of all our children. Teachers constantly evaluate and develop their practice in light of current educational thinking.  We plan for a progressive acquisition of skills in each subject across the curriculum. The areas of study are mapped out carefully to ensure curriculum coverage in terms of both knowledge and skills. Careful tracking of coverage is crucial in a small village school such as ours as year groups are mixed.

We provide the children with real-life experiences, and every topic has an enrichment day such as a trip, a visitor or an experience day.   We also run class enterprise projects and whole school theme days and participate in many cross school events through our Trust.

All of this exciting activity takes place within our historic 100-year-old building surrounded by a playground, orchard and new creative space. We use these areas for outdoor learning, storytelling and imaginative play. We also access the village Multi-Use Games Area (MUGA) and sports field adjacent to our school which enables us to deliver an excellent PE curriculum.  All of this, combined with our extra-curricular programme, promotes a healthy and active lifestyle.

Parents are encouraged to be involved in their children’s learning and so support the implementation of our curriculum. Pupils are provided with termly homework grids which outline a range of imaginative and practical homework tasks which we expect parents to engage in with their children.

Gretton Primary Academy is an important part of the local community and we have developed trusting relationships with the village community over several years of collaboration.  Alongside our school values, our place in the community is at the heart of our school ethos. To support our teaching of the curriculum, we invite members of our community to speak to the children and we regularly reach out to elderly members of our community and people in need. For example, we invite elderly members of our community to join our Christmas lunch and at Harvest festival our pupils distribute food hampers to vulnerable members of the community. These activities reinforce our school values of responsibility and kindness.

Curriculum Impact

The impact of our curriculum in the short term, is that both the children and staff at Gretton Primary enjoy the learning journey and look forward to coming to school every day.

In the medium term, we hope that our pupils become creative thinkers, independent and enthusiastic learners who are constantly knowing more, remembering more and becoming more skilled. This translates into pupils making strong progress from their individual starting points and achieving outcomes that are typically above national averages. Assessment at Gretton school is an integral part of teaching and learning to measure the impact of the skills and knowledge children acquire. Teachers draw on a range of evidence to assess what pupils know, understand and can do across the curriculum. This assessment is used thoughtfully to shape future learning.

Our long term aims are to develop the whole child and to equip them with the skills to become lifelong learners, the cultural capital to be good citizens and to give them experiences that they will remember forever. By the time children leave our school they are well prepared, both academically and socially, not only for the next stage of their education but for their future lives. 

"The curriculum provided by the school is broad and balanced" 

"Pupils social, moral, spiritual and cultural development is, threaded throughout the wealth of experiences they have"  Ofsted report February 2016

For further information on the curriculum please see the curriculum overviews and homework grids sent out every term, which can be found in the parent info section of this website. The curriculum expectations for each year group are also available on the curriculum section of the website. 

If you require further information about the curriculum at Gretton Primary Academy please contact Jane Macdonald jmacdonald@grettonprimary.org or Rebecca Jackson rjackson@grettonprimary.org