“I love the way you teach our children, where empathy and real life experience play a fundamental role. I am also glad that you are making them aware of environmental problems without them feeling overwhelmed but empowered to make a change. Thank you!” Year 4 Parent
“We’re not ‘just kids’ at this school. It’s like there’s nothing ‘just’ about us. We are humans who have the power to make changes. Teachers support you and make you feel like you can do it. It’s a quality of this school that’s really nice.” Year 5 child.
Curriculum Intent
Children at St. Ebbe’s learn the disciplinary and substantive knowledge that define each curriculum subject, encapsulated by enquiry questions, which encourage them to think deeply and want to further understand and to deepen the knowledge they encounter.
‘You can travel the seas,poles and deserts and see nothing. To really understand the world, you need to get under the skin of the people and the places.’ Michael Palin
Each enquiry starts with a story about a person, in a place, with a problem to be solved, stemming from the work of Dr. Debra Kidd. In connecting with a human who needs, their help, children become emotionally invested in their learning and therefore retain the associated knowledge and that which they generate through their own curiosity. (Daniel Willingham: ‘Stories are privileged in the human mind’). The enquiry questions we have chosen are, by their very nature, ones to which there is no one ‘right’ answer so that children learn how to use their knowledge to express themselves clearly orally and in their writing, and to disagree productively with others.
Whilst learning each curriculum subject through our enquiry-based approach, children have multiple opportunities to encounter the philosophical concepts of compassion, sustainability, human rights, leadership, belonging, belief systems, creativity and happiness, concepts which we believe will help them to become, ‘wise, compassionate citizens with the power to make a difference’.
Reflecting the diversity of our community, children learn about individuals who have solved the human problems they encounter and who have subsequently changed the world. Through this, children are inspired to make their own changes and to believe that, in the face of problems and uncertainty, they too can make a difference and be hopeful for a better future.
By presenting their work at Learning Exhibitions three times each year, children have the opportunity to refine their work so that it is the best they are capable of, to publicly express their knowledge and ideas orally and in in writing and through a variety of creative media, with the aim of inspiring the adults in their lives to make changes and therefore be ‘of service to the world’.
Click on the images below to discover more about how our intent is lived out through each project and to see some of the beautiful work children have created. Scroll down for our Yearly Curriculum Overview.
Reception and Key Stage 1
Key Stage 2
Yearly Curriculum Overview
This document details what children learn at St. Ebbe’s in each academic year for each subject. Further details about each subject such as progression in knowledge and skills can be found on each subject page.
Yearly Curriculum Overview (1)