The Curriculum at Redlands

With over 40 languages spoken at our school, we aspire to a curriculum that is inclusive whilst being creative. Children who attend our school have varying levels of fluency in English, so we endeavour to provide learning opportunities that are on the one hand language-rich, but on the other are accessible to all.

We focus on partner talk in every area of the curriculum – children work and plan together, exchanging ideas and methods, supporting one another to achieve well. In subjects where an understanding of technical language is required, we provide language support for all learners via word banks, displays and guidance from an additional adult where necessary. It is a highly inclusive approach. 

We strongly believe that a broad, creative curriculum is essential for all our learners to succeed. We deliver English, mathematics and science in an integrated cross-curricular way wherever possible.

Each year group has studies key topics over the course of the academic year. As much learning as possible is linked to this topic. Trips are planned to compliment and consolidate the children's learning. Topics are carefully planned so that they are sequential and the children build knowledge and skills over time. Teachers ensure tasks are well designed and scaffolded so that all children can be successful and secure their learning.

As a multi-cultural school, we celebrate the diversity of our children and see it as a hugely positive opportunity for learning. We pride ourselves in the global dimension in our teaching, using texts and learning resources that have a strong global element or message. We often refer to current issues in our teaching and are committed to ensuring the children have a good factual understanding of high profile issues. This is a proactive way of heling young people to stay safe and alert to misinformation.

Our teachers are highly skilled at delivering lessons that encourage children to think for themselves, to challenge stereotypical thinking, to speak out against injustices and to make a difference to the world they live in.

The personal, social and emotional aspects of learning are fundamental to our curriculum. Beginning in nursery there is a strong emphasis on self-awareness and respect for others. As a school located close to the university and hospital we have a number of families who are with us for a few years only. Consequently children at Redlands learn how to welcome and include new children from the earliest stage. This nurtures a growing sense of empathy amongst our pupils who have sophisticated levels of understanding other people by the time they leave our school. Their social skills and emotional maturity are often commented on by the secondary schools they move on to.

At our school children understand that mistakes are an essential part of learning and that their attitude towards their learning makes all the difference. We help the children to develop meta-cognition so that they understand how they learn and what helps them to learn better. They become increasingly reflective about their learning as they move up through the school and develop the ability to self-assess accurately. They know that resilience is the key and that new challenges can be exciting rather than daunting. This approach applies to every aspect of our curriculum. We also believe in the value of curriculum enrichment.

All these elements play an important part in the design of our curriculum which is carefully created to meet the needs of our diverse community of learners.