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Our Curriculum

The school curriculum is driven by the Gillingstool Vision

This vision is driven by the unique context of the school. First and foremost, it endeavours to respond to the needs of the community in respect of well-being, building emotional resilience, aspiration, developing cultural capital and a richness of vocabulary that enables effective communication. Simultaneously to harness the opportunities and celebrate the potential that the local environment has to offer in supporting learning and enjoyment for life. From this understanding and celebration of locality we aim to empower children to become global citizens with a real sense of agency in making a positive difference to the world.

We endeavour to provide the best education possible for the children of Thornbury based upon our agreed values of:

  • Inclusivity
  • Ambition
  • Resilience
  • Curiosity
  • Creativity
  • Integrity

These values are integral to our curriculum design and underpin all we do at Gillingstool Primary School.

Curriculum Aims

We aim to provide an environment in which all children can flourish. We recognise that our demographic at Gillingstool Primary School is varied: with a third of each cohort being a low or high prior attainer, our curriculum must be designed in order to enable all learners to maximise progress and succeed. Therefore, we provide a strong focus on basic skills, alongside the wider opportunities to challenge learners.

Our aim is to provide a curriculum which develops key learning skills and knowledge which will equip them for adult life and to become life-long learners whilst enriching the children’s life experiences, challenges them to achieve the best they can.

Through our curriculum and teaching children will learn to:

  • Develop their oracy skills in order to become confident, articulate speakers;
  • Become fluent readers, with a real love of books, in order to fully access the wider curriculum;
  • Write, with accuracy, for a range of purposes;
  • Develop the skills to approach calculations and reasoning with confidence;
  • Become independent thinkers with an ability to ask and answer questions;
  • Have an awareness of the world and global issues
  • Develop skills, knowledge and creativity across a wide range of subjects;
  • Develop high aspirations as resilient learners with a growth mindset;
  • Be happy, well-balanced, polite members of our community;
  • Form strong friendships and work collaboratively;
  • Grow in self-esteem and self-confidence and
  • Adopt a healthy lifestyle.

Our curriculum is designed to give our children the best possible grounding for secondary education and life as contributing global citizens. We recognise that in order to succeed in education, children need to acquire good levels of literacy and numeracy, and as such, reading, writing, spelling and mathematics are given a priority in our teaching programme. We also recognise a need to extend the vocabulary of the children we teach in order that they have the best opportunity to access the wider curriculum effectively.

For more information regarding the principles and pedagogy under-pinning our curriculum, the curriculum structure and individual subjects please select from the tabs on the right.