Children are offered opportunities for deep thinking and are taught to be active, curious learners. They are not just told; they are encouraged to find out for themselves and given the tools to do so. This develops them spiritually as they reflect on and question the ‘bigger picture’ of life and become secure in the knowledge that some questions can be answered and some cannot.

Opportunities for spiritual development, which include questioning and deep thinking, are provided across the curriculum. At Christ Church school we identify this as a continuing journey of discovery about yourself, others and the world around you. It is learning about and developing the strengths and talents you have inside yourself thus becoming secure in your identity as a unique and valued individual. It is developing a deeply held set of values that become so ingrained that you can act in line with those values in any situation.  It is recognising and accepting differences and beliefs in yourself and others. This is vital to equip the children to live in multicultural Croydon.

Children are supported to identify what helps them to learn and aas part of day to day learning they are also given a language of learning from the ‘Learning Powered Approach’ formerly known as ‘Building Learning Power’.

Developing children’s understanding of Christian values is an integral part of children’s learning within our school day. It is our intention that children should know how love, courage, honesty, faith and forgiveness are lived out in their own lives and the lives of others.

Every child is recognised as a unique individual. We celebrate and welcome differences within our school community. The ability to learn is underpinned by the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, concepts and values. We constantly provide enhancement opportunities to engage learning and believe that childhood should be a happy, investigative and enquiring time in our lives where there are no limits to curiosity and there is a thirst for new experiences and knowledge.  We use Learning Powers to promote positive attitudes to learning, which reflect the values and skills needed to promote responsibility for learning and future success.

Our experience of working in our school community tells us that our children are most engaged in their learning when it immerses them in meaningful, creative experiences which work towards an end goal. They are excited by working outdoors or on school visits where learning really comes to life.

The curriculum we offer at Christ Church School includes all the experiences we offer our children, which meets and extends beyond the requirements outlined in the National Curriculum. We see the curriculum as a progression model which has suitable depth and breadth, building on prior experiences and learning to help make sense of new knowledge and skills. We teach using a topic-based approach but also ensure that we give sufficient focus on each subject discipline. The high-quality curriculum that we offer has been carefully crafted with a commitment to evidenced-based pedagogy. It has been designed to give consideration to the sequence of content necessary for children to make progress, providing children with the knowledge they need for subsequent learning through, for example, planned vocabulary development and enquiry led themes. We have ensured that our curriculum reflects the cultural diversity of the world that we live in, in our commitment to promote equality in all that we do. We believe that the National Curriculum best meets the needs of our pupils when it is enriched and enhanced by meaningful activities.

It is important that the education we provide fully prepares our young people for a successful transition into secondary school and then on to be successful and contributing members of society. To achieve this aim, staff at Christ Church School recognise that the curriculum needs to strongly support each child’s personal and pastoral development to enable us to meet every child’s individual excellence and enable all of our pupils to flourish.

To promote effective learning, staff use the following strategies:

•        Creating and managing a positive and stimulating learning environment
•        Support children in noticing the learning enough to tell it as a story.
•        Actively engage children in Assessment for Learning (AfL)
•        Tools and strategies used to engage children effectively
•        Link the learning through themes to make it more coherent for children
•        Ensure that the curriculum is well planned and sequenced so that there are sufficient opportunities planned to revisit previously learned knowledge, concepts and procedures.