Birdwell's Curriculum 

Our curriculum is driven by the need to prepare our children to become lifelong learners. Our rich and relevant curriculum, which is ambitious for all children, develops the essential knowledge, skills and understanding that we believe are the foundations for life. We teach the requirements of the national curriculum, but go beyond this in delivering a wide-range of learning experiences that we believe are important for our children. 

At Birdwell, our values enrich our curriculum and allow our children to share their own talents and skills. 

Our Birdwell tree encompasses the attitudes we try to instil in all of our community. 

Our Values are:

We are creative: we use our imaginations.
We are team players: we work together.
We are curious: we ask questions.
We are proud: of ourselves and others.
We are brave: we take risks and learn from our mistakes.
We are kind: we are considerate and respectful.
We are individuals: we celebrate our differences.

At Birdwell we are really proud of our personalised and varied curriculum. Our curriculum aims to ensure that:

• Our children are curious, life-long learners who can work collaboratively and achieve their full potential.
• Our children experience a wide-range of learning opportunities – where possible linked to purposeful, real-life problems and our local community.
• Our children know that there are no limits on their abilities.
• Our children become active citizens that embody the British Values, but are able to live in our Local and Global community.
• Our children's learning in English and Maths follows the requirements of the National Curriculum, with high expectations for them all.

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.

The Community

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:

• Our Year 2 children spent time learning about teeth and Dentistry from Bristol University students, whilst also being inspired by the University itself.
• Our Year 5 children were involved in a wildlife project run by Bristol Water, Bristol Avon Rivers Trust and Avon Wildlife Trust to grow, look after and then release eels into a local lake.

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

Outdoor learning is a fundamental part of our children’s Birdwell life, with children taking growing responsibility of different areas within the school site.

Our Wider Opportunities

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.

Jigsaw / PHSE

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.

Religious Education

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

The main subject driver for each topic is highlighted by colour: History, Geography, RE or Science.