Skip to content ↓

Junior School Curriculum

At BHSA, we are proud of our curriculum provision, which is engaging and enriching. Our children are encouraged to share their interests, link their learning to solve problems, raise questions and follow their own lines of enquiry, and are required to think for themselves. We believe in preparing our children for the future by enabling them to acquire knowledge and skills, whilst developing attributes through a range of experiences both in and out of the classroom. National Curriculum statutory requirements are fulfilled and in addition to this, our BHSA curriculum is organised to address any social disadvantage, offering experiences and opportunities that are broad and balanced so that all children can develop the cultural capital to succeed in modern Britain.

High quality texts are integral to the planning process, allowing children to see the links between language, reading and writing. Core subject skills are promoted daily in early morning phonics, reading and afternoon mental maths sessions, with regular spelling, handwriting and punctuation sessions across the week as appropriate. Presentational and communication standards, including public speaking, are practised regularly ​with several opportunities to develop oracy across the year, ​including our annual Y1-6 Poetry Competition.

At BHSA Junior School, we consider the subjects of RE and PSHE as vitally important to children’s broader understanding and cultural awareness of the world. These subjects are taught as discrete lessons each week. Our core values of respect, forgiveness and kindness are explored in Monday and Friday assemblies and collectively as a class throughout the week. Our vision statement of grow, flourish, think, together with our three core values are embedded in all that we do at BHSA Junior School, promoting the qualities of being a good learner, a good friend and a good global and online citizen. These values are then supported and developed by class teachers within PSHE or RE lessons.

We want our children to grow in confidence; grow in self-motivation and grow friendships that will last forever. We want our children to flourish socially and academically, aiming high and never giving up. We want our children to think independently, making good decisions; think about ‘the consequences’ and think about others before themselves. We want our children to be respectful of all, forgiving of themselves and others and kind in their thoughts and actions.

 

We have worked to develop a curriculum which our children enjoy; we celebrate their learning and the development of a thirst for learning to ensure lifelong learning behaviours such as oracy, resilience and collaboration. These are embedded throughout the children’s learning journey; at BHSA, children are encouraged to have a growth mindset and recognise mistakes as stepping-stones to learning.

We have an incredible and dedicated staff team who work together to ensure our curriculum provision goes ‘above and beyond’. We have specialist teachers in music, PE and languages and our children benefit from close links with the older students in our Senior School and also from the specialist facilities on our very own doorstep, including: the extensive library, theatre space, sports hall, DT and science labs and computer suite. Our curriculum ensures a commitment to learning about the world beyond school, arts, culture and creativity as well as mental health and wellbeing. We raise long term aspirations for our pupils by making explicit links to life beyond school, allowing children to see the relevance of their learning.