Teaching and Learning

Our curriculum has knowledge at its heart: we want our children to experience the joy of learning, and we know that this helps them become confident, articulate and creative young people.

How the children learn this knowledge depends, of course, on their age. When our youngest children join us, much of their learning takes place through playing in a warm, supportive environment. We know that each child learns and develops in different ways and at different rates. Our skilled teachers therefore carefully plan play activities to respond to children’s emerging needs and interests, and they engage them in rich, meaningful conversation to develop their use of language. As children become ready, we introduce them to adult-led teaching sessions, and these become longer as children start to prepare for learning in Year 1.

In Key Stages 1 and 2, our children study a wider range of subjects, from history and geography to music and technology. All our curriculum programmes are academically ambitious, and our clear, carefully-planned teaching allows all children to succeed. We take the time to choose carefully what knowledge to teach, prioritising that which will be of the greatest value to our children in their later lives, and we work out how to teach it in a way that helps children to remember it and to understand how different parts of the curriculum are related to each other. In some cases, we do this using schemes of work especially designed for our children by experts at our Trust’s Curriculum Centre, while in others, we make use of nationally and internationally acclaimed schemes.

At Millbank Gardens, we know how important excellent teaching is. This is why we work hard to select and to retain the best teachers and teaching assistants, and why we all devote considerable time each week to developing our own practice. Indeed, many of our staff are or have been involved in training and developing teachers beyond our school. In addition, our children benefit from specialist teaching in some subjects, such as PE, music and art, where we judge this helps them to make the best possible progress.

If you wish to learn more about what your child is learning, please do speak to their class teacher. To find out more about our curriculum, please speak to Dr Smith (who can be contacted via the school office). Parents have the right to withdraw their children from all or part of Religious Education; please speak to Dr Smith if you wish to do so or to discuss this further.

Teaching and Learning

Curriculum Maps