Our Curriculum

At Ampney Crucis C of E Primary School, our core Christian values and ethos define all that we do.

Ampney Crucis is a school family, where, through different experiences our children grow surrounded by love, so they are strong both in body and in mind.

We support and respect each other, working as one to welcome all and walk alongside those who need it most, looking outward, recognising when one part of our community suffers, we all suffer yet when one flourishes, we all flourish.

At Ampney Crucis we all flourish together.

 “God himself has put the body together in such a way as to give greater honour to those parts that need it. ²⁵ And so there is no division in the body, but all its different parts have the same concern for one another. ²⁶ If one part of the body suffers, all the other parts suffer with it; if one part is praised, all the other parts share its happiness. “

Together we live, learn and flourish.

Our Christian Values are:

Respect

Courage

Compassion

To enable every child to flourish, we ensure our whole curriculum is rich and rigorous. We believe that strong relationships are the bedrock of effective teaching and learning. As a Christian School family, we invest our time in building deep, meaningful relationships with one another. These relationships, guided by our Christian vision and values, are at the heart of our school curriculum. We are clear about our expectations and we want all children to, through the opportunities and curriculum we provide, discover new skills and talents. We want all children to flourish and excel at all that they do.

Who is responsible for the Curriculum?

The class teacher is responsible for teaching the entire curriculum with specialist provision for PE. We offer a wide range of extra curricular activities with support and motivate children to achieve their full potential in areas such as sport and the arts.

At Ampney Crucis C of E Primary School all class teachers are responsible for providing a curriculum that is suitable for all the pupils in the class, including those with Special Education Needs or Disabilities (SEND) with support from the SENCo. We have high expectations for all pupils and are committed to ensuring our curriculum complies with the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014. Out inclusion statement emphasises the importance of providing an inclusive learning environment for all pupils including those with SEND. Additional information on this can be found in the SEND page of the website.

What is the purpose of our school curriculum?

1. To develop motivated, independent, self-reflective learners that have the confidence and skills to succeed now and later on in life.
2. To ensure our children have the knowledge and understanding of how to keep themselves healthy, both physically and mentally to support their long term well-being.
3. Through our distinctively Christian ethos and RE and Collective Worship curriculum, to share with our children the messages from Jesus’ life and an understanding of and a respect for the beliefs and cultures of others.
4. To develop children’s awareness beyond the community in which they live, so they develop a global awareness of the differing world around them.
5. To create a literacy rich experience, where children are fluent readers, develop a rich vocabulary and enjoy reading for pleasure.
6. To develop children’s fluency in number and their ability to reason and to problem solve.
7. To develop children’s communication skills in a range of forms and to be able to articulate confidently in different situations.

Our School’s intent– why do our children come to school every day? Our vision for Teaching and learning.

“A curriculum that goes beyond the classroom’s walls.”

Staff at Ampney Crucis C of E Primary School say, “At Ampney Crucis we aim to ignite curiosity and a life love of learning through a broad, rich and engaging curriculum whilst ensuring children treat each other with respect and kindness. Our Curriculum will be embedded in the bedrock of the firm relationships we build with all our families and children.”

Our Curriculum Intent

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Matthew 5:16

At Ampney Crucis C of E Primary School, we pride ourselves on offering an inclusive environment where all children learn to reach their full potential and flourish regardless of ability, background, challenge or need.

Every child is recognised as a unique individual.  We celebrate and welcome differences within our school community. The well-being of each child is at the forefront of our practice and provision and we are committed to developing the child as a whole, emotionally, socially, academically and physically.

There is a high focus on developing children’s moral, spiritual, social and cultural understanding, creating a respectful, thoughtful and reflective culture.

Community involvement is an integral part of our curriculum, inviting families and visitors to share their skills and knowledge.

We promote positive attitudes to learning which reflect the values and skills needed to promote responsibility for learning and future success. We encourage pupils to be: Curious, creative, adventurous, independent, resilient, imaginative and reflective.

Our positive intent is to widen our children’s horizons.  Our children come from a range of backgrounds in a largely rural area with limited diversity.  Our curriculum is structured through topics and a study of key figures to help our children see beyond what they already know, encourage curiosity, a love of learning and the desire to go above and beyond with the aspirations.

Our Implementation

The school follows the Foundation Curriculum for Early Years and National Curriculum for the rest of the school. Taking the Equality Act 2010 and the 2014 SEND regulations into consideration, we ensure that every individual pupil is able to access every lesson or session and we incorporate a creative, coherent and consistent approach that is designed to enable all children to learn and apply the knowledge and skills taught.

Our small class sizes, especially in Foundation Stage (15 children) enables us to foster a nurturing and caring environment which children are confident to work in.

Our Christian values are the ones that are the agreed expectations for behaviour, we act and treat each other as we would wish to be treated.

Our taught curriculum is split into two cycles as we have mixed age classes in our school, apart from Foundation Stage and this way we can make sure that no child misses or repeats a subject during their time with us. Each cycle lasts one year and this is split into six terms - two from September to Christmas, two from Christmas to Easter and two from Easter to Summer (please see the term dates on our calendar page). While every area of the national curriculum is covered across the year, we also allow for time to be spent in forest school, swimming, trips and visits, and residential camps

In 2016, we redesigned the curriculum fully in the way described however during 2020-21, following the closure of schools due to the pandemic we went through the process of re-evaluating all aspects of the curriculum as it is a living document that constantly changes and evolves to meet the needs and interests of the current cohorts.  This year, for example, we built in dedicated mental well-being and PSCHE focused days that are additional to our PSCHE curriculum that runs throughout the year.

Our teachers work incredibly hard to ensure the curriculum they deliver across each year group is engaging, interesting, exciting and challenging. The overviews below give an outline of the area covered within each subject for each term of the academic year. Parents receive additional information through the school newsletter, knowledge organisers and events where we invite parents to join us in school.

At Ampney Crucis we embrace a pedagogy of Personalised Learning. Children’s interests are pursued and pupil voice helps shapes the curriculum. Teachers work as a team to look for ways to inspire pupils in each subject, by using quality teaching, texts, other resources, visits and visitors to stimulate learning. Giving learning a clear purpose allows children to make connections, motivating and inspiring children to equip them for learning today and life tomorrow.

Our Curriculum Principles

Our curriculum is rooted in the values of our school as a church school

We believe that we should provide lots of experiences to make sure learning is embedded. We believe that through our 10 Principles for teaching we will create a learning environment where children will be curious, ask questions and be independent learners.

Our Core Offer

Our aim is to design a curriculum for our children to develop into well rounded individuals.

We have designed our curriculum around key questions that will be investigated through a subject, mainly led by Science, History or Geography.

We aim to give children at least 2 educational visits each year as well as having visitors in or visit via a virtual platform. We also hold days focused on well-being, specialist learning weeks and whole school events that reflect the Christian calendar and/or a focus on spirituality or prayer.

Impact

The curriculum impact must be measured against our initial intent (above) which can be done in a myriad of ways. There are many ways of measuring this impact from the 'impactful marking' dialogues in books, to our pupil progress meetings with teachers, to termly reports to parents and of course our internal data and end of Key Stage (Y6) SATs. In addition to these more formal ways of measuring the impact of teaching and learning, impact can be seen through the extensive monitoring that is undertaken by our school improvement partner, between schools, by the Governing body and within our own team. All of this drives continuous self-reflection and evolution of our curriculum offer. 

However, while all these methods of determining impact are valuable, we believe that the true measure of the impact of four years of our curriculum offer is to talk to the children themselves about their learning journey, the support and challenges that exists and what they are excited about learning in their future.

In this section you will find more information about the subjects taught at Ampney Crucis.

Included in each area you will find more about how we teach the subject in the school and the subject progression map showing the skills and knowledge from Reception to Year 6.

We teach on a 2 year rolling program from Year 1 upwards due to having mixed age classes.

Our curriculum has been revised and adapted in light of COVID19 and continues to be adapted in the light of children being absent.

Other pages