THE CURRICULUM

Vision Statement

 

We aim to serve the community by providing high quality education and promoting Christian values.

 

"Celebrating the achievement of all by living and learning together"

 

School Aims

 

• The school recognises that its purpose is to provide the best possible quality of learning experience and environment for the children in its care.
• We are committed to ensuring each child enjoys their education at Cam Hopton and achieves their full potential.
• We want Cam Hopton School to be renowned for its academic success, its sporting endeavours, its musical and creative flair, its Christian ethos and values and its family atmosphere.
• We want the School to be a valued part of the community.
• The staff and governors are committed to ensuring "Every Child Matters" and will always recognise individual success. We will have in place strategies for each child to succeed.
• The staff are committed to pursuing professional excellence, while aiming to develop their own potential to the full.
• We should like children to be noted for being happy, self-motivated, industrious, smart, polite, well-behaved and caring.
• We believe the partnership between home and school is fundamental in achieving these aims.

The Curriculum

The curriculum is the means by which the school seeks to achieve its stated aims, which are as follows:

1. To promote the spiritual, moral, intellectual, social, physical and emotional development of each child.
2. To prepare each child for the next phase of their education.
3. To provide a rich, stimulating environment which engenders the feeling that education is an exciting and enjoyable part of our lives.
4. To encourage pupils to aim at achieving the highest standards of which they are capable.
5. To develop in each child good work habits, self-discipline, self-motivation, reflection and resilience.
6. To  enable each child to explore their creative abilities and develop their aesthetic awareness.
7. To create a happy, caring school environment, and help each child to appreciate the importance of personal relationships and the various needs of others.
8. To ensure that all children have equal access to all curricular and extra-curricular activities.
9. To foster close links with the local community and enable each pupil to understand the importance of good citizenship.

To meet these aims we offer the full range of both core and foundation subjects of the National Curriculum, together with other enriching elements.

 

 

Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act requires publicly funded bodies, including schools, to be clear about the information they publish.  We have produced a publication scheme setting out all the information we publish on a regular basis and where to find it.  Ask the school office to let you see the scheme or provide you with a copy free of charge.

 

Curriculum Complaints Procedure

 
Under the Education Reform Act 1988, the Local Education Authority has established arrangements to consider parents' complaints about the school's curriculum and related matters.  A copy of the full procedure for this is available for inspection in each school and public library maintained by the authority.  It covers matters relating to the National  Curriculum and includes provision of external exam courses, religious education, the operation of the school's charging policies in relation to the curriculum and the provision of information.  The procedure provides for complaints to be directed initially to the head of the school, and for an attempt to be made to resolve them informally.  If this fails, there is then a formal appeal procedure available to parents.

Special Educational Needs

 
The school is required to make provision for children who have particular learning difficulties.  If you are concerned about your child's learning, behaviour or physical development we will be pleased to discuss the situation with you.  The school has a Special Needs Policy which gives clear guidelines for supporting pupils with special educational needs.  In most cases this support will be provided by the school itself but in exceptional cases it may be necessary to refer a child to the Local Educational Authority in order to secure additional provision and specialist resources.  No decisions are taken at any stage of this process without full consultation with the parents.

 

 Data Protection Act

 

Cam Hopton School processes personal data about its pupils and is a "data controller" in respect of this for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998. It processes this data to:

• support its pupils' teaching and learning;
• monitor and report on their progress;
• provide appropriate pastoral care, and
• assess how well the school as a whole is doing.

This data includes contact details, national curriculum assessment results, attendance information, characteristics such as ethnic group, special educational needs and any relevant medical information.

 

This data may only be used for specific purposes allowed by law. From time to time we are required to pass on some of this data to local authorities, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), and to agencies that are prescribed by law, such as the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), Ofsted, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), the Department of Health (DH), Primary Care Trust (PCT), ContactPoint (mentioned below). All these are data controllers in respect of the data they receive, and are subject to the same legal constraints in how they deal with the data.

 

The governing body of a maintained school in England is also required by law to supply basic information to ContactPoint. ContactPoint is a directory that will help people who work with children and young people to quickly find out who else is working with the same child, contact details for their parents or carers (with parental responsibility )and the contact details for the school.

 

Pupils, as data subjects, have certain rights under the Data Protection Act, including a general right to be given access to personal data held about them by any data controller. The presumption is that by the age of 12 a child has sufficient maturity to understand their rights and to make an access request themselves if they wish. A parent would normally be expected to make a request on a child's behalf if the child is younger.

 

If you wish to access your personal data, or that of your child, then please contact the relevant organisation in writing. Details of these organisations can be found on the following website: www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/dataprotection or for those pupils where this is not practical, a hard copy can be obtained from the school (Mrs C Leahy, Head Teacher or Mrs C Merchant, School Administrator)

 

Your attention is drawn to (Layer 2) of this Fair Processing Notice, which gives supplementary information about the processing of pupil data by the organisations mentioned above, and gives greater details of how the pupil data is processed and the rights of parents and pupils. This can be obtained by visiting www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/dataprotection or by requesting a hard copy from the school (Mrs C Leahy, Head Teacher or Mrs C Merchant, School Administrator).

 

Religious Education and Collective Worship

 
Religious Education and Collective Worship play an important part in the spiritual, moral and social education of the children.

The aim of Religious Education is to enable the pupils to understand the nature of religious beliefs and practices, and the importance and influence of these in the lives of believers, so that their own personal spiritual development will be promoted.  As a Church of England school the majority of our teaching will focus on the Christian faith but other faiths are also included in our scheme of work.

Our daily act of worship is Christian and follows a weekly theme.  Stories and examples are drawn from a variety of sources and are related to the children's experiences of everyday life.  The aim is to encourage them to reflect inwardly on different aspects of their character and to consider the ways in which God can guide and support us in our lives.  The school has close links with St George's Church and the vicar is involved with the teaching of Religious Education.  She is involved in Collective Worship at school as well as services in church to take the major festivals such as Advent, Christmas, Easter and Ascension Day.

Obviously we hope that no parent will feel it necessary to exercise their right to withdraw their child from these activities, but any parent wishing to do so should contact the Head Teacher.

 

Sex Education

 
The Governors and Staff are aware that at primary school level particular care and sensitivity is needed in matching teaching to the maturity of the pupil, which may not always be indicated  by chronological age.  At this level, teaching should aim to help the pupils cope with the emotional and physical challenges of growing up and give them elementary understanding of human reproduction.  We agree with Section 46 of the Education Act 1986 which requires that Sex Education is given in such a manner as to encourage the pupils to have due regard to moral considerations and the values of family life.

 

Homework
Although the school has a homework policy, we are very conscious that children need time to pursue their own interests and to relax at the end of a busy school day. However there are activities which we send home and encourage parents to share with their children. These will include learning words, spelling or basic number facts, reading or completing work and research activities. The co-operation of parents is particularly important during a prolonged period of absence.

 

Extra Curricular Activities

 

Numerous activities take place during and after school.

• Music - Recorder, violin, guitar and woodwind lessons are available. We have a choir and there are music workshops with children from a number of local schools plus our own concerts and productions at the end of term.
•  Sport - There are clubs for football, netball, rugby, hockey, cricket, rounders, cross-country and athletics with regular fixtures against other schools and participation in district tournaments and festivals.
• Others - Keep Fit - Keep  Healthy, Chess, Nature, Gardening and Triball Sports Club.