Benhall Infant School and Pre-School Curriculum

Our unique curriculum is deeply rooted in the successful principles of Early Years practice. Our KS1 Continuous Provision offers us the opportunity to build on the children’s prior knowledge, allowing them to practise skills in a variety of contexts and to lead most of their learning.

Our curriculum is carefully designed by our skilled teachers to provide engaging learning opportunities across all subject areas.  On their journey through our school, they follow a sequence of learning that builds knowledge and skills and prepares them for the next stage of their learning. 

At Benhall our teachers, governors and family strongly believe that children learn best when engaged, enthused and motivated. They believe that the learning style and environment created ensures that children are supported in developing the skills to become lifelong learners.

Our curriculum is designed to reflect the uniqueness of each child and the pedagogy our teachers believe promotes lifelong learning behaviours.  Our curriculum is delivered through topics that are inspired by the child’s interests and may vary from cohort to cohort, but the learning outcomes (knowledge and skills) will be the same for each year group cohort.  The topics are the vehicle that drives the learning, and the children are the driver that navigates the journey through the subjects acquiring knowledge, skills, and vocabulary on route.   The children learn through their enquiries that follow rich teacher led input.  Their thirst for knowledge comes from provocation, questioning and the sharing of age and stage appropriate sequences of learning.

All the children can learn and achieve because of the high expectations they have for themselves.  Our teachers designed a curriculum that meets the needs of everyone with interchangeable pathways that respond to our individual needs, challenges and circumstances. 

Children make progress because our curriculum has built in pitstops, so that teachers can monitor progress and attainment, addressing gaps in a timely way.  There are frequent opportunities for children to revisit and remember prior learning through teaching sequences, teacher’s questioning and a visual learning journey displayed within each classroom.  Each term ends with an assessment and review week where gaps in learning are addressed for individual or groups of children and “sticky spots” can be revisited.

Our curriculum ignites a lifelong love of learning.  Our children are given the skills, knowledge and vocabulary to make key transitions between year groups and key stages.  We develop our children’s independence and learning behaviours that allow them to learn within a range of learning environments.  Our children are inquisitive, resilient, confident learners who can connect their learning.  They are confident communicators who can share our knowledge with others and ask questions that further their knowledge and understanding of the world around us.

When our children leave Benhall Infant and Pre-School they will be:

• An independent learner
• A communicator
• Knowledge rich
• Skilled
• Have pride in themselves
• Respectful
• Questioning
• A team member
• Resilient
• Vocab rich
• Reading and writing to support their enquiries and demonstrate their knowledge
• Ready for the next stage of their learning journey