Year 5/6 presented us with their fashion show. They performed to the whole school and then to parents in the evening. The PTA ran a swishing event – which was a chance for parents and children to come and swap some of their used/ unwanted clothes for other people’s used or unwanted clothes. As the children very eloquently put it in their fashion show, we must stop buying and throwing away so many clothes because the impact on the environment is unsustainable.
We are committed to fostering people’s (children and adults alike) agency/ autonomy in their own learning; trusting them by giving them the opportunity to play, take risks, innovate, imagine and question; expecting them to engage in self-reflection.
‘We are given a bit of freedom / choice about when and how we learn something. I think having a bit of choice helps you learn.’ Yr 6 Leaver 2020
‘If you put fleas in a shallow container they jump out. But if you put a lid on the container for just a short time, they hit the lid trying to escape and learn quickly not to jump so high. They give up their quest for freedom. After the lid is removed, the fleas remain imprisoned by their own self-policing. So it is with life. Most of us let our own fears or the impositions of others imprison us in a world of low expectations’ -John Taylor Gatto.
Our Curriculum Threads: a core body of understanding: substantive and attitudinal
We have seven common threads running through the curriculum project – all leading to core knowledge and understanding and
attitudes we hope our Year 6 pupils will embody by the time they leave the school.
We must recognise that our pupils enter school with an existing knowledge base and we must look to build upon, connect and sometimes dismantle this base; while at the same time bringing something new to the equation.
In defining desired outcomes for Year 6 pupils (at the end of the threads) we therefore look to:-
a) our own beliefs about the purpose of primary education (i.e. what we would like to bring to the equation)
b) our community context (ie what our community brings to the equation)
c) our core values as a school (ie what our church distinctiveness helps to bring to the equation)
- Curriculum Thread 1: Spirituality & Core Values
- Curriculum Thread 2: Sense of Community
- Curriculum Thread 3: Strengths and Interests:
- Curriculum Thread 4: Appreciation of Difference
- Curriculum Thread 5: Environmental Activism
- Curriculum Thread 6: Creativity and the Appreciation of Beauty
- Curriculum Thread 7: Wellbeing
These Curriculum threads are laced through subject topics with teachers aiming to achieve year group milestones for their children.
They will be the focus of assemblies and school events and focus weeks and P4C.
The Fashion Show was simply wonderful. It felt like the first time for a long time that we had been able and willing to ‘gather’ and to
celebrate- and what a way to do it! The children’s homespun fashion put smiles on people’s faces from start to finish and their
passionate speeches about sustainable fashion had every adult in the room taking heed- we felt well and truly told! This is where
we want to pitch our wider curriculum- somewhere purposeful; somewhere passionate; somewhere creative; somewhere
memorable. I think all of us that were there would agree the evening encapsulated all of this and more. To have Minch CAN
arrange a clothes swapping and our PTA run a bar on the side was inspired and leant the evening even more integrity. I would like
to thank everyone who got involved, from teachers to designers to stitchers to swishers.
