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General Policy Statement on the Curriculum

Claires Court Schools offer

• a caring and supportive environment
• an education geared to get the very best from every child – stretching them academically to achieve and even exceed their expectations
• outstanding academic results for all levels of ability
• a full program of activity, brimming with opportunity
• a foundation that nurtures children and means when they leave the School it is as well balanced, considerate, confident and competent individuals

The Nursery’s aims

• To instil a joy of learning
• To build children's confidence and self-esteem
• To improve language and communication skills
• To encourage independence
• To teach children to show consideration for others
• To help prepare children for starting school
• We never lose sight of the fact that our children are individuals and we work closely with parents to achieve each child's individual potential.
• Most of all, we know Nursery should be fun.

The School’s Aims

• To provide a modern relevant education
• To instil and promote a life-long love of learning
• To equip our pupils with a range of life skills - academic, social, musical, creative & sporting
• To build confidence and self-esteem and prepare our boys and girls for the next steps in their lives
• To promote the spiritual development and moral welfare of each individual
• To generate an understanding of the need for care and consideration for others within our community and the wider world
• To work in partnership with parents and guardians to help our pupils achieve their full potential

The Sixth Form’s main aims in addition are

• To make sure that all of our students realise their full potential and achieves the entry requirement for the course or career of their choice,
• To prepare them for their life ahead

The Principals, Heads and Senior management work tirelessly to ensure we deliver the offer made to our pupils and families, that the aims expressed so clearly above provide a clear focus for our work, and believe that our Core Values and professional Key Beliefs provide great strength to our purpose.

To this end, the general principle governing the curriculum of the school is that every child shall be entitled to and shall take up a curriculum which is balanced and broadly based and which:

• promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of children at the school;
• prepares the children for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of on the next stage of education and leading on into adult life.

The school provides for all children access to the areas of experience below

• Aesthetic and Creative
• Ethical - values and relationships
• Linguistic - four dimensions of language, listening, reading, speaking and writing.
• Mathematical - numerical, spatial, scientific and practical.
• Physical - co-ordination of mind and body.
• Scientific - observation, enquiry, technology, environment.
• Social and political - society and its institutions.
• Spiritual - values of school, society and religion.

Curriculum planning

The school's articulated curriculum plans answer 7 basic questions both within each curriculum area and across the curriculum.

• Why? – objectives/aims and policy.
• What? - guidelines, schemes of work, curriculum policies.
• Who? – the staff responsible for the key processes
• How? - teaching and learning methods and processes.
• Resources? – what is needed in terms of equipment, time, finance
• Whether? - evaluation.
• Review? – quality control dates

Our Schemes offer breadth, balance, coherence, relevance, differentiation and progression and where appropriate in accordance with the principles underlying the National Curriculum and/or those of examination boards or devised elsewhere by other agencies.

Assessment for Learning

They incorporate elements which contribute to assessment and comparison over time thereby providing:

• information which teachers can use in deciding how a child's learning can be taken forward and in giving the children themselves clear and understandable targets and feedback about their achievements;
• teachers and others with the means of identifying the need for further diagnostic assessments for particular children where appropriate to help their education development;
• overall evidence of the achievements of a child and of what he or she knows, understands and can do;
• aggregated information about children's achievements which can be used as an indicator of where there needs to be further effort, resources, changes in the curriculum etc.;
• helpful communication with parents about how their child is doing; and with Principals, our various professional associations such as ISA, IAPS, ISC, ISI and the wider community about the achievements of the school;
• a basis for professional development, in that the process of carrying out systematic assessment, recording attainment, and moderating the outcomes in discussion with other teachers in the school moderating groups will be a valuable basis for teachers to evaluate their own work and gain access to new thinking.
• Our Schemes of work take into account the continuous nature of education, having regard to the experiences the children will have had before entering the school, and those anticipated after they leave. Liaison with our own nursery, and between junior secondary and sixth form divisions, as well as feeder junior and senior schools is an important factor in curriculum design.

The school seeks to meet the needs, specifically, of its children.

We provide a positive, caring environment in which the children are made to feel good about themselves. Establishing a good rapport with children, building their confidence, encouraging them to express individual ideas, examining established values leading to a greater understanding are at least as important as teaching the academic curriculum.

The school is responsible not only for the physical safety and well-being of the children, but also for their psychological safety and well-being. We encourage the child's self-confidence and self-esteem. This is vital for learning, for all children. When the child's own image of self is counter-productive, when s/he regards her/himself as a failure and feels that others do too, the child will be unhappy and will not learn. The image is thus self-reinforcing. Image building is thus a vital part of the school's work.

Activities such as praising the children, displaying their work, helping them take part in assemblies, plays, sports and other activities are all part of this.

Gifted and Talented

The more able have many successes on which to build, and the school seeks to provide for the particular needs of these children.
At 11+, 12+, 13+ and 6th Form, the school has specific assessments to identify those who are academically gifted or vocationally talented – the Scholarship examinations. Further information on these can be obtained from the Registrar.

Learning Differences and Difficulties

It must also be remembered that those whose work and behaviour is less good may be the ones in most need of support and reinforcement. Teachers have the problem of ensuring that all children are helped to develop self-confidence and self-esteem.

Those who find the formal curriculum difficult are not to be denied opportunities for personal development either. If the demands made on a child threaten to lessen self-confidence and self-esteem, then it may be time to alter the demands being made. It is vital that learning is seen as essentially useful and enjoyable. It is an important tool for life and if children learn to enjoy it when young, this will stay with them.

Children need to be literate and numerate, and the school recognises the need for clear guidelines for the core subjects of English, Mathematics and Science.

The content of the remainder of the curriculum (as described in more detail in each year group’s curriculum handbook, and which is revised each year) is important not just in its own right but it too may be a vehicle for establishing learning skills. What the children need to know is how to find out. They need the skills of original research, to be able to formulate hypotheses through empirical methods and reach their own conclusions.

These aims have considerable curricular implications. These will be made explicit in the guidelines for subjects, to be found in the section or departmental handbooks developed by our teaching staff. The teacher, while needing to be informed and knowledgeable as a person, need not be the fount of all knowledge, but rather a guide to the child's own resources, enabling each one to realise his own potential for original thought and synthesis.

It has been said that teachers talk too much. While the teacher is talking, children cannot (not legitimately, at least). Yet it is while talking within a structured framework, testing their ideas in a non-condemning, encouraging yet critical (in its true sense) environment, that much valuable learning will be achieved. At the end of the day, it is what children carry out of school with them in their heads that is important, not how much they have written in books etc., although written work may have been a valuable tool in achieving that end result.

Within this broad policy, distinct aims and particular policies emerge, such as those for academic subjects, for PSHE, Careers, Sex & Drugs education, anti-bullying and more generally Pastoral Education.

Further more, our policy is clear to enable each child:

• to read fluently, with understanding, feeling, discrimination and enjoyment a variety of materials written in different ways for different purposes;
• to write legibly and with a satisfactory standard of spelling, syntax, punctuation and usage;
• to communicate clearly and confidently in speech and writing, in ways appropriate for various occasions and purposes;
• to listen attentively and with understanding;
• to acquire information from various sources, and to record information and findings in various ways;
• to develop awareness of self and sensitivity to others, acquiring a set of moral values and the confidence to make and hold valid moral judgements, distinguishing fact from opinion, be aware of gender and multi-cultural issues, recognising prejudice, bias and superstition and to develop habits of self discipline and acceptable behaviour;
• to apply computational skills with speed and accuracy;
• to understand mathematical language and concepts in order: to extend understanding through a process of enquiry and experiment, to successfully manipulate them and apply them in various situations in home, school and local area, to appreciate the structure of mathematics and the nature of number, to be aware of the applications of mathematics in the world, to develop analytical and logical ways of thought;
• to observe living and inanimate things and thereby, through a process of observation, discrimination and classification recognise characteristics such as pattern and order;
• to master basic scientific ideas and methods;
• to investigate solutions and interpret evidence, to analyse and solve problems, to understand the importance of controlling variables in experimentation so that results are fair, to present results in a variety of ways appropriate to the work;
• to know about geographical, historical and social aspects of his wider environment and the national heritage and culture, to be aware of other times, places, cultures, religions and races and to recognise links between local, national and international events and their importance for him as an individual within society, to be aware of Christian beliefs and their importance in shaping our current society;
• to be able to use various art forms, craft and design skills as means of expression using a variety of materials and methods demanding a range of manipulative and technological skills and to extend their skills in these areas, to be aware of art and design in the environment both past and present;
• to be aware of the effects, and able to make use of new technology in a rapidly changing society, especially with respect to computers and electronic information handling;
• to develop agility and physical co-ordination, confidence in and through appropriate physical activity, the ability to express feeling through movement, drama and dance, to swim, where possible to spend some time in a physically challenging outdoor environment, to develop an understanding of the body, its workings and the changes associated with adolescence and their implications, the requirements of good health and nutrition; to be aware of the effect on health of solvent abuse, smoking, alcohol and drugs;
• to appreciate music by experiencing it through listening, performing and composing, through practical means, thereby leading to an understanding of the structure and sounds of music, and where possible to learn proficiency with one or more musical instruments, to be aware of and value great music of past and present and develop a critical sense with regard to music;
• to understand the value of achieving happiness for him or herself and others and that both may be achieved by contributing to society and others.
• to understand the responsibilities s/he has to ensure they co-operate with those around them and in responsibility; and where their behaviour is incompatible with this, accept the Headteacher has the duty to discipline, suspend and ultimately to exclude them from the school to protect the interests of the remaining pupils in the school.

Further information on the Schools approach to Discipline, Suspension and Exclusion can be found in the Admissions Policy and in the Acceptance Contract signed between Parents/Guardians and the School.

This Policy statement should be read in conjunction with the various materials produced by the school sections and departments, such as the curriculum handbooks, and provides the frame of reference within which each section, department and subject can establish its own particular policies and practice.

JTW
January 2008