Our Curriculum
At Godalming Junior School we believe that the children should be exposed to a genuinely bespoke curriculum that engages, challenges and stimulates ALL children underpinned by our passion for creating a LANGUAGE RICH environment where children access reading across the curriculum. We also expose children to learn about CORE VALUES which are ALIVE throughout the school.
Curriculum INTENT
It is the schools intent to ensure the curriculum is ambitious, creative and rich built on HIGH QUALITY TEXTS and an instilling CORE VALUES at every opportunity. We believe that though success in English and Maths are integral to education, we consider ALL subjects form a fundamental part of the learning journey for children at Godalming Junior School. We have unique designated learning areas for Music, Art and DT, PE and Food Technology which further emphasises the importance of the children accessing the full breadth of the primary curriculum. Our PSHE curriculum is a significant strength of the school and further provides the children with key life skills and is closely aligned to our CORE VALUES. A robust and values based approach to our PSHE curriculum ensures that, along with other curricular areas, the school prepares the children extremely well for life outside the school gates and for the next chapter in their education. The formal subjects we teach are:
English
Maths
Science
Computing
The Arts (including Music, Art, DT and Drama)
Humanities (including Geography, History and RE)
MFL (French and Spanish)
Music
PE
PSHE
Curriculum IMPLEMENTATION
The curriculum is taught by highly skilled, flexible, creative and committed staff who put a huge amount of effort and time to ensure ALL areas of the curriculum are taught to a high standard, with a strong focus on the National Curriculum PURPOSE OF STUDY and the school's PROGRESSION OF SKILLS. We also pride ourselves on the outstanding learning behaviours of our children who readily contribute and play an active role in their learning which is nurtured by the adults in the school. Alongside our curriculum we run our '10richment' programme of theme weeks throughout the year. Introduced in 2018, we have 10 theme weeks to develop further the soft skills in the children and expose them to the 'hidden' curriculum. This has proven to be effective and successful in exposing the children to the wider world and promotes an appreciation to the extraordinary diversity of the world around us and it's people. This year our theme weeks are:
POETRY WEEK
HEALTHY WEEK - (MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEING)
REMEMBRANCE WEEK
HUMAN RIGHTS WEEK
HERO WEEK
ARTS WEEK
BOOK WEEK
SCIENCE WEEK
EARTH WEEK
INTERNATIONAL WEEK
These weeks encourage staff to bring areas of the curriculum to life by any means they feel is appropriate. This may involve trips or inviting visitors into school and being creative by linking these themes to areas of their curriculum.
Curriculum IMPACT
We regularly assess the impact of our curriculum by again, looking at books, monitoring planning and talking to the children about their learning. The children are very positive about their school (over 90% of children stating they enjoy coming to school and 94% stating they felt safe at school - Pupil Survey 2020). Senior Leaders meet regularly to discuss curriculum matters, where strengths lie and where improvements need to be made. We have also seen an upward trend in our end of year attainment in Year 6 (children achieving the expected level in English and Maths 2017-66%, 2018-77% and 2019-82%). We feel the broad curriculum and the 10richment programme in place at Godalming Junior School contributes significantly to this upward trend and provides the children with a comprehensive learning experience so that they learn to LOVE the people around them and treat each other with respect, LIVE healthy lives and develop a thirst and hunger to LEARN and be life-long learners.
Ofsted Parent View 2022 Outcomes
My child is happy at school - 99%
My child feels safe at school - 100%
The school makes sure its pupils are well behaved - 99%
The school has high expectations for my child - 99%
My child does well at this school - 98%
There is a good range of subjects available to my child at this school - 99%
My child can take part in clubs and activities at this school - 99%
I would recommend this school to another parent - 99%
More information on our curriculum can be found in the different year group sections on this website.