We aim for our curriculum to be:

The curriculum is all the planned activities that we organise in order to promote learning, personal growth and development. It includes not only the formal requirements of the National Curriculum, but also the range of learning experiences that we deliver in order for school to be a magical place of learning. We aim to teach children how to grow into positive, responsible people, who can work and co-operate with others while developing knowledge and skills, to help pupils become the very best that they can be.

At Whitewater, we aim to equip pupils to make a positive contribution to society in the future through a rich, broad and engaging curriculum which inspires all pupils to learn through the acquisition of knowledge & skills with the school values of Love, Respect and Courage at its core.

We ensure that our curriculum retains the integrity of each individual subject throughout the school. Each subject is valued and our vision for each subject is brought into the classrooms through our subject posters titled Growing the Whitewater Geographer or Artist etc. The journey within the subject is captured through our Roadmaps which helps to ensure broad coverage and progression throughout the primary curriculum. 

Both the Posters and the Roadmaps for each subject are shared on the subject pages alongside the subject intent.

When developing the Whitewater Curriculum, the following principles guide our decision-making:

Inclusive & Accessible

We provide an inclusive education within a culture of support and high expectations. All staff work together to nurture and support children, ensuring they feel happy, safe and cared for in school. Our curriculum and teaching enables all children to make progress from their relative starting point. Our overarching aim is to ensure that we make every lesson count, for every child.

Aspirational & Challenging

We will guide and support all children in finding who they really are. We foster a ‘growth mindset’ and model determination and perseverance which enables opportunities for all children to experience what success feels like. We use open-ended questioning and apply high order thinking asks that allow children to solve problems both independently and collaboratively. Through devices such as the ‘Learning Pit’, we aim for every child to embrace challenge and recognise that this is a fundamental part of effective learning.

Inspirational & Engaging

At Whitewater, we ensure that learning is vivid and real. We want our children to develop understanding through enquiry, creativity, use of technologies and learning behaviours. We foster thinking skills to make learning interesting, flexible and inventive. We create an effective environment to embed learning skills across a range of subjects, using a varied approach and a variety of learning techniques to create and maintain a ‘love of learning’.

Relevant & Purposeful

We ensure both teaching and learning are well-structured so that children know what is to be learned and how they learn best. We set clear targets, making every learning experience count. We use rich and interesting content which children can relate to and make connections with to drive our curriculum. We actively strive to develop confidence and self-discipline; ensuring children understand and are aware of the learning process. Our curriculum generates enthusiastic and resilient learners who strive to exceed their goals.

Progressive & Fulfilling

We plan and deliver a curriculum which builds on prior learning by assessing and reflecting on practice. We ensure that we make links explicit between what has previously been taught to current learning. Our planned curriculum ensures that children have the opportunity to make links in their learning and apply knowledge and skills to new problems whilst recognising the need for retrieval practice to enable the retention of learning. We work to ensure learning is ‘fun’ and that children are keen to learn more.