Birdwell's Curriculum
At Birdwell we are really proud of our personalised and varied curriculum. Our curriculum aims to ensure that:
We want to start our children on their journey to become the future leaders, scientists, writers, designers, technology experts, geographers, mathematicians, historians, artists: we want to inspire them each and every day to achieve their goal.
Our curriculum is outward looking and embraces our wider community. We readily engage with parents, industry, local organisations and individuals to bring the real world into our school. The children learn from talented artists, dancers, musicians and visitors each term who enrich our curriculum.
For example:
We are incredibly proud of the impact our curriculum has on our local community through our Values work. An important example of this is our Christmas Challenge where every child in the school participates in spreading Christmas cheer to local charities, businesses in Long Ashton, The BRI and local nursing homes. The children work with the Bristol charity 'Caring at Christmas' to help support hundreds of people who are homeless in the city at Christmas time. Through opportunities such as these, we want our children to realise that they can impact positively on their world.
Outdoor learning is a fundamental part of our children’s Birdwell life, with children taking growing responsibility of different areas within the school site.
We provide our children a wide range of sporting activities, from dance and athletics to team games and tournaments, every term. As a part of the ENTHUSE science cluster, our children take part in exciting STEM activities and present these to other schools with pride.
Art and music also feature prominently within our curriculum. We are passionate about nurturing our children’s enthusiasm and creativity in this way.
Children enjoy a range of experiences through their topics, and a couple of times a year will present their learning to their families in a variety of ways. These include poetry recitals, dance shows, workshops, songs…we love to share the children’s work.
We celebrate national and local events together and enjoy participating in Christmas and Summer shows. We want to celebrate all successes and hold an Awards Evening each Summer in order to recognise those children who have really demonstrated an aptitude in a curriculum area.
PHSE stands for Personal, Health and Social Education. It is an important part of our children's learning that helps to give them the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to lead confident, healthy and independent lives. At Birdwell we follow the Jigsaw approach to PHSE. More information about this, particularly the Relationships part of the scheme, is shared with parents during the Summer terms.
We use the 'Discovery' RE syllabus to guide our planning and delivery of the RE curriculum.
Whilst this overview gives you an idea of the breadth of the topics we study, we ensure that we review our curriculum regularly, so as to best meet the needs of the children in that class, in that room, in that year. You can visit 'Class Pages' for more detailed information regarding current curriculum topics for individual year groups.
Birdwell's year group overviews
Nursery and Reception |
Year 1 |
Year 2 |
Year 3 |
Year 4 |
Year 5 |
Year 6 |
Our Early Years classes plan their themes to inspire and capture the children’s imaginations. These themes are based on the children’s interests but cross all areas of learning within the Early Years Foundation Stage. These may be themes like: Ready for School; Superheroes; Traditional Tales; Space; Explorers and Plants. |
Fossil Detectives How do different families celebrate around the world? What was it like when my family were 5? Marvellous Materials Where are we in the world? Wonderful Wildlife
|
Brunel’s Bristol Into the Wild Tour to Tokyo: Around the World The Great Fire of London How Does your Garden Grow! Same but Different: Kenya and Long Ashton |
The Rainforest
Under the Sea
The Vikings |
Incredible India
The Romans
Amazing Antarctica
The Egyptians |
World War Two
Space
The Mayans
Extreme Earth: Natural Disasters
Extreme Earth: Save our World |
Rivers
Ancient Greeks
Stone Age to Iron Age
The Human Body
|
The main subject driver for each topic is highlighted by colour: History, Geography, RE or Science.