Curriculum Rationale

Curriculum Intent

Everything we do at Great Missenden is led by our vision, which centres around the idea of using windows, doors and mirrors.  During their time at Great Missenden, we want all our children to develop a real love and thirst for learning which will remain with them for their entire lives, preparing them for the challenges of secondary education and enabling them to flourish in all that they do.

Using a question based approach, underpinned by our school's school Christian values: Truth, Love, Faith, Courage, Respect, Community, we aim to deepen the children's understanding of the world around them. We want the children to know more and remember more.

Having designed a 'We are Curriculum,' at Great Missenden, we are mathematicians, authors, geographers, historians, artists, designers, scientists, theologians, sociologists, athletes and so much more. 

We believe that an exciting, deep curriculum is essential for children to be inspired to learn and we work hard to make our curriculum irresistible and inclusive for all. Through rich and engaging cross curricular  Learning (based on the National Curriculum), we motivate learners ensuring that they have a broad and balanced understanding of the world around them whilst creating memorable learning experiences during their time at Great Missenden.

We want our children to have limitless ambitions reaffirming our vision of ‘Believe and Achieve.’ In doing so, we encourage children to celebrate success and build on disappointment, developing resilience. We are firm believers that it is not just what happens in the classroom, but the added we value we offer throughout our curriculum. 

Curriculum Implementation

Our curriculum has been carefully built and the learning opportunities crafted to ensure progression and repetition in terms of embedding key learning, knowledge and skills. Subject leaders inspire both pupils and their colleagues when following the progression of skills in each subject area.

We have six school christian values which permeate all aspects of life at Great Missenden. Each half term is allocated to one of these core values, which is then explored as a whole school in assemblies and lessons. One of these values is used as a 'key concept' in each year group to demonstrate how the values of Great Missenden are embedded in the wider world. By contextualising learning, we find children are able to know more and remember more.

We empower our staff to organise their curriculum as they see fit to best suit the needs of the pupils in their care. They are best placed to make these judgements. Year groups are given termly planning days to create current and engaging topic webs and subject knowledge organisers which identify when the different subjects and the specific subject skills will be taught across that term.

We teach our non core subjects discretely, raising their profile and transforming our children into geographers, historians and artists. We use a Maths Mastery approach to create problem solvers and follow Talk for Writing to create authors.

Curriculum Impact

To truly understand the impact of our 'We are Curriculum,' you have to come and see us! The pupils of Great Missenden are committed to their learning, demonstrate resilience daily and are proud to wear the school badge.

We are a high achieving school with pupils who have worked extremely hard to get there. We recognise the successes of all children and celebrate their growth mindset attitude with each accomplishment. 

The impact of our curriculum will always be measured by assessment procedures which allow us to measure outcomes against all schools nationally. 

To measure the impact, in class, we use formative and summative assessment information daily. Staff record this information in the marking diary and use this to inform their short-term planning. The helps us provide the best possible support for all of our pupils. We are a PIXL school and therefore complete termly Maths and English assessments to track the children's understanding and progress of the children against the national curriculum. Again, the question level analysis informs the teacher's planning to tailor our curriculum to suit the needs of the children. Each year group create assessment statements for our non-core subjects. At the beginning of each term, children complete a 'cold task' illustrating their current knowledge of that particular unit of work. At the end of each term, teachers check the progress of the pupils using a 'hot task,' similar to that of Talk For Writing.

Our biggest measure of Impact are the children. They leave Great Missenden as well-rounded individuals who embody our values and carry with them the knowledge, skills and attitudes which will make them lifelong learners and valuable future citizens.

Enjoyment of the curriculum promotes achievement, confidence and good behaviour. Children leave our school as Mathematicians, Authors, Scientists, Historians, just to name a few! Our pupils show tolerance and acceptance to those from different faiths and backgrounds and are well equipped for their wider world and further life challenges ahead.

Subject Coordinators

Each subject is coordinated by a teacher, who has overall responsibility for the coordination and delivery of the subject. The coordinators are as follows:

Maths 

Miss Wong and Mrs Bayliss

Writing

Mrs Pearson

Reading

Miss Cartwright

Phonics

Miss Collier

Science 

Mrs Thomson

Computing 

Mr Allison

RE 

Mrs Sutaria-Cassidy and Miss Wright

Geography 

Mrs Barac

History 

Mr Austin

Art and DT 

Jo Barton

Music 

Mrs Hulbert

PE 

Mr Hall

MFL 

Madame Garcia

PHSE/ SRE 

Miss Cammack

To contact a Subject Coordinator for more information about our curriculum, please email the office on office@gmglt.co.uk.