Happy Children, Happy School; Achieving Excellence in Education’

Lavendon School is a one form entry school set in the village of Lavendon. Through our curriculum we aim to offer learning experiences for our pupils designed to develop the values of respect, independence, resilience, caring, happiness and honesty.  We are proud to be part of this community and parents are encouraged to play a full role in school life, helping their child to flourish academically and socially. We ensure that pupils with disabilities can access the curriculum over time by ensuring that activities and approaches are reviewed and adapted in a variety of ways (for example, adjustment to the selected resources, review and adaptation of the spaces used within the school and the use of support staff/additional adults to support activities) so that everyone can access these fully. 

Intent

We recognise that our pupils deserve learning opportunities that encourage them to be creative, enquiring and reflective through a curriculum that is exciting, engaging, and highly relevant. We believe in empowering our pupils to become open-minded, independent, well-rounded individuals.

To achieve this, we have implemented a coherent, sequential curriculum model that enables pupils’ learning to connect and progress, year-on-year.

We want to offer high quality teaching and learning for all our pupils that highlights the importance of human creativity and achievement and leads to the development of educated citizens within our own community and on a wider national and global scale. Raising aspirations and enabling each of our pupils to grow into the best version of themselves is at the heart of this.

We are very proud of our school family and have a strong commitment to the school motto of ‘Happy Children, Happy School; Achieving Excellence in Education’. It creates the platform for our pupils to confidently explore new ideas to develop their learning throughout their educational journey at Lavendon School.

Click the buttons below to find out about our Core Subjects

For a lot of our curriculum we follow Dimensions: Learning Means the World Curriculum, Our children are split into 4 age groups. These groups are Explorers (EYFS), Pathfinders (KS1), Adventurers (LKS2) and Navigators (UKS2). Each of the thematic units taught in each age group aim to develop different traits and skills in the children as they progress through their learning pathway. These are as follows: 

 

 

                  

              

This curriculum is underpinned by four highly relevant world issues, known as the four Cs:-

Culture

Communication

Conflict

Conservation

Click on the picture links below to see the road maps for each curriculum theme. These documents identify the key concepts taught across the four themes as the children move up through our school. 

Communication 

We believe that pupils need to understand the immense power of good communication skills; academically, socially and emotionally. Being able to communicate and listen prepares them for the future, helps them build positive relationships and provides them with tools to succeed. We recognise that digital communication is an integral part of our pupils’ lives. As such, we have identified developing excellent communication skills as a priority for equipping our pupils for the future.

We want our pupils to use language that is appropriate to their audience as a means of increasing confidence, encouraging, and supporting each other through both verbal and non-verbal communication

We want our children to be confident and independent in expressing their views, and we also want them to recognise the importance of listening to others who have different views or opinions.

Culture

As a school that predominantly represents a white British demographic, with limited exposure to, and little personal experience of other groups, we want to teach our pupils to fully appreciate and embrace cultural diversity. By learning about and experiencing a range of different cultural and faith heritages, our aim is for our pupils to have a better understanding of society. We want them to appreciate that they are part of a wider and diverse community beyond their immediate vicinity. To understand the roots and importance of cultural heritage and to behave in a respectful and tolerant way towards others, regardless of faith, gender, ethnicity, or background is paramount. As a ‘family’ school we actively and explicitly promote cross-cultural friendship, respect, tolerance and understanding through our ‘Learning Means the World’ Curriculum.

Conflict

Pupils need to learn how to handle conflict, and it is our aim to teach a range of skills throughout the curriculum that will help build up resilience. Helping pupils independently and constructively cope in a range of difficult situations is part of this process. Having a developed understanding of sources of conflict and the importance of seeing things from others’ points of view, we believe, will make a difference to their own choices as they learn more about conflict resolution.

This understanding of responsible, respectful behaviour is an important aspect of learning.

We also want our pupils to have a greater understanding of global conflict and its impact upon society to broaden their understanding and perspective.

Conservation

Conservation requires active investment from our pupils, not just a knowledge of it. Through our curriculum, we aim to provide opportunities for pupils to develop a deeper understanding and to recognise the impact this issue will have on them and future generations if ignored. We believe it is essential to teach our pupils about sustainability as part of becoming a responsible citizen. We are fortunate to be in a rural location, and it is our intention to fully utilise this to brings pupils’ learning to life, developing a compassionate and caring attitude towards the natural world.

Our curriculum “Learning Means the World’ has been designed to develop age-appropriate awareness and appreciation of our world on local, national and global levels. We are excited for our children to become stewards of the future through action, collaboration, creativity and problem-solving.

Our curriculum Theme Cycles begin with Communication, as this underpins all learning and links to the other three focus areas. We have followed this with Culture, because we believe that it is important for our pupils to understand their identity in a wider context. Our next theme, Conflict has a focus on the past as well as resolutions in the present, specifically learning from mistakes. Finally, Conservation which helps our pupils appreciate our environment now, take responsibility for the future in the aim for a better, sustainable world.

Our pupils are also encouraged to have high aspirations through additional Competency Units about famous figures that focus on Creativity, Commitment, Courage and Community. Through these units they learn about inspirational human creativity and achievement.