St Philip Westbrook C of E Primary School

St Philip Westbrook C of E Primary School"Together we aim high and with God's love we can fly"

The Wider Curriculum

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At St Philip’s we give high importance to all areas of the curriculum and teach a broad and balanced personalised curriculum that engages, inspires and challenges children. Detailed information for core subjects and personal development can be found in the links to the left hand side of the page. Information for the range of other subjects can be found below.

Art & Design

The development of knowledge and skills relate to drawing, painting, collage, textiles, use of computing skills, 3D sculpture, printing and the use of sketch books. Children also learn about great local, national, and international artists, architects, craft makers, and designers, and how they have contributed to the culture, history and wealth of our nation.

Computing

Children have regular access to an excellent wealth of devices in our school to support their learning in this area of the curriculum. We have several banks of iPads in addition to devices in each classroom, a bank of laptops, a range of controllable electronics and subscriptions to different websites and resources to enable us to deliver an up to date and relevant curriculum. The three areas of the Computing curriculum are:

Information Technology where children learn how to take and edit photographs and develop their film making skills, and use different Microsoft programs and apps to analyse, present, create and publish their work and prepare them for life in the workplace.

Computer Science where children learn how to write programs, to code and to debug using a range of devices. Children use an online subscription website called Purple Mash, which contains a range of  2Code  challenges, children are able to continue their learning at home by logging on. We also use a range of devices such as BeeBots and apps to stimulate, extend and deepen their learning.

Digital Literacy where children learn to use the internet, to use search facilities and develop knowledge, skills and understanding in how it is used for communication and collaboration. A key area is for children to know how to stay safe online, we use all of the latest information and resources from a range of organisations and charities.

Design & Technology

Children learn how to design, make, evaluate and apply their technological knowledge in a range of contexts using food technology, mechanisms, information technology, construction, mouldable and flexible materials, electrical and mechanical components and textiles.

Geography

Children develop their knowledge, skills and understanding of physical, human and geographical knowledge through enquiry. Children enjoy local and regional visits to make help them make sense of their learning. Our aim is to inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them throughout their lives. Children study their immediate local area, Warrington, and Great Britain, they also learn about contrasting environments including South America and Egypt.

History

Local history is integrated across school through visits, visitors and links with our local museum. Our curriculum is organised chronologically to enable children to gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.

Modern Foreign Languages – Spanish

Children learn Spanish from Reception through to Year 6, enabling them to achieve well. We employ a specialist Language teacher in addition to learning and teaching as part of the class curriculum. Learning is led through high quality fun strategies, with a focus upon singing and choral work.

Music

A bespoke progressive, sequenced knowledge and skills based curriculum has been established using Charanga music school and the DFE model music curriculum as a resource to do this. 

Key musical genres, style and traditions from around the world have been identified from the National Curriculum, with further curriculum design based upon:

Three key music themes have been identified which are revisited throughout school; these are:

  • Listen & appraise, perform, compose: pop music post 1960
  • Listen & appraise, perform, compose:jazz 
  • Listen & appraise, perform, compose:instrumental/orchestral

Great, significant composers have also been identified across the three themes.

Culture has been carefully considered when making curriculum choices, key world genres and key musical traditions feature across the school. Key cultural and ethnic music is studied.

Music units have been carefully selected to ensure the children develop an understanding and appreciation of a range of musical genres, enabling them to listen and appraise, compose and perform, reflecting the styles and key stylistic identifiers.