Outdoor Growing, Environment and Our Local Area
As well as using our outdoor environment to facilitate pupil’s learning, each class learns about our environment and how to take care of it. A focus of our curriculum is also planting, growing and harvesting to underscore our locality as a farming community. This thread is seen predominantly within Design Technology, Art, Science, Geography, English and Religious Education. We have an eco-council who work together to suggest further improvements to our Federation.
All classes have an environmental pledge to further strengthen this driver. All classes use our wildlife areas to engage in active learning throughout the year. We are in the process of developing these areas for greater community involvement. We have allotment areas where children are involved with the planting, harvesting and growing of vegetables and children regularly participate in gardening activities to enhance our outdoor spaces.
We are incredibly blessed at the Federation to have access to a wide range of enhancement opportunities in our local area. We use our woodland areas to engage in outdoor learning and we use our local area for local visits and community events.
We are fortunate to have access to nearby educational provision from the Roman heritage in our local area so frequently use these sites to enhance our curriculum. As well as regular partnership work and enhancements between the two schools in our Federation, we are deeply committed to working with other schools and are part of the Haydon Bridge partnership to offer further enhancements to our children’s learning. We also engage with our local community with frequent events, enrichments and celebrations, both within and beyond the school walls.
We are a Church of England School. Our Christian Values underpin the qualities we want our children, staff and community to display in their daily lives. We have strong links to our local vicar (Father Steve) and the church and this is maintained through frequent worship, visits and community events (such as Remembrance Day Celebration).
Our children take part in collective worship every day and at the end of the week, we celebrate when our children have shown our Christian values through our celebration assembly. We develop spiritual awareness by asking ‘the bigger questions’ which allows children to be engaged and motivated to have a positive attitude towards learning which will help the children flourish.
We also learn about other faiths within our Religious Education programme of study and explore how these faiths are important to individuals and communities.
Wider World and Diversity
Within our curriculum, we learn about cultures, families and ways of life that may be different to our own.
Big books capture pupils’ learning and understanding of the wider world, especially when this takes place outside the classroom, learning is focussed locally, nationally and internationally and when visitors come to school. Weekly class assemblies focus on current affairs and informs children of the diversity which exists around our world, recorded in our ‘hot topic’ books.
From this year, we will focus on attaining the Fairtrade mark, introducing the Rainbow Flag award and linking with a local (Newcastle) inner city school and an international school, as part of our global neighbours focus, to learn more about the differences in our modern world.
At the West Tyne Church Schools Federation, we make a difference to our local and regional area through sports competitions, collaboration with other schools and organisations and projects. We endeavour to find out about those people, throughout the world, who have a legacy and have made a difference.
Through exploring the lives of these people, throughout our curriculum, we are able to investigate the difference they have made whilst understanding that we can make a difference to those around us. We instil in our pupils that they can change the world, one action at a time, such as these legacy makers.