Primary

CURRICULUM SUMMARY

At Kings’ School Al Barsha, we treat every day as one step along a learning journey designed to inspire children to become effective, enthusiastic, independent and lifelong learners.

Our unique curriculum is based on the National Curriculum for England and Early Years Foundation Stage, but is influenced and contextualised by global issues and local opportunities, and personalised to meet the specific needs and interests of our international community of children.

The curriculum is also innovative and concept-based. This ensures children are provided with endless opportunities to develop their understanding, as well as knowledge and mastery of skills, in a deeper and more meaningful way. The skilful weaving of factual, conceptual and provocative questions into lessons encourages critical thinking, collaboration and debate at the highest level. We also provide children with opportunities to influence what and how they learn to further personalise their learning journey whilst also fostering ownership and engagement. In addition, the cross-curricular teaching approach at Kings’ further immerses children in their learning and inspires them to make connections within and across subjects.

The main curriculum is further enriched by specialist teaching of Arabic, French, Spanish (from Year 5) ICT, PE, Swimming, Music and Islamic Education. Children also have access to an impressive range of technology (including iPads), which help to equip, develop and promote skills for lifelong learning.

Read more detail in the pages under Learning to understand the curriculum at each stage of your child’s learning journey.

FOUNDATION STAGE (AGE 3-5) – FS1 AND FS2

At Kings’ School Al Barsha, we provide a broad and balanced curriculum for our youngest children, aged 3 to 5 years, based on the UK Early Years Foundation Stage. The curriculum covers the areas of:

• personal, social and emotional development
• communication and language
• physical development
• literacy
• mathematics
• the world
• expressive arts and design

Every child is unique and our teaching is designed to treat all children as individuals. Our holistic approach means that parents/carers, class teachers, specialist teachers and learning assistants work very effectively together to support our ethos ‘the best by every child’. Our teachers skillfully plan an interest led curriculum, which empowers students to take the lead in their learning.

Our Guiding Principles within the Foundation Stage are as below:

• all children are unique
• there is goodness and compassion in every child
• children are curious, creative, natural inquirers and are motivated by their own interests
• children learn through exploration and play
• children are resilient learners who understand mistakes are part of the learning process
• teachers and children guide and facilitate learning, co-constructing their knowledge together
• relationships are fundamental

Most importantly, we believe that happy and well-motivated children are good learners. The Foundation Stage is a safe, secure and friendly environment for our youngest children to gain confidence and independence, in preparation for the next stage of their schooling. It is an excellent foundation for future learning.

PRIMARY CURRICULUM

Our bespoke, concept-based curriculum is based on the National Curriculum for England, to ensure that the skills and knowledge gained at KSAB are in line with UK expectations. The concept curriculum links knowledge using ‘big ideas’ and is planned with subjects being threaded together so that it connects in sensible and logical ways. This allows children to deepen their understanding of a given concept because it is encountered in a way that makes connections explicit and relevant. Our curriculum enables children to understand the ‘so what?’ of their learning and encourages them to become active members of the community and responsible global citizens. While teaching all of the subject-specific content required to meet UK expectations, our curriculum also focuses on five key values:

• Coherence – How are the different subject areas being covered linked together to deepen the understanding of the chosen concept? How does each element of the learning build on what has been taught before?
• Content – Which elements of the UK national curriculum are we planning to teach and how can we make the learning as relevant as possible to our children in an international setting?
• Creativity – How will the concept offer the opportunity for children to think creatively, not necessarily through making and doing in an artistic sense, but through linking, presenting and communicating their ideas?
• Community – What opportunities are there within the concept for children to be involved in their community either on a school, local, national or global level?
• Compassion – How does the concept you are teaching encourage children to step into the shoes of others and build skills of empathy and compassion? Adapted from Debra Kidd’s Curriculum of Hope.

The concepts and content we choose to teach our children are flexible and adapted in response to global and local events and priorities. Each term, children focus on a different concept, for example, Truth, Endurance, Responsibility, or Innovation. As the term progresses, the children are guided to explore the concept through different lenses and consider key learning questions which will help shape and deepen their understanding of the concept. Examples of these key questions could be:

• Who has had the biggest influence on the modern world?
• Is there a limit to human endurance?
• What types of relationships are there in the wider world?

Kings’ children are challenged to learn through collaboration, investigation and perseverance. They benefit from a wealth of experiences, including: designing and making improvements to their own playgrounds ; campaigning to the local community about environmental issues; hosting sustainable fashion shows; making, marketing and selling ‘seed bombs’ to protect the bees and publishing their own poetry books. Children at Kings’ School Al Barsha will experience a rich learning environment, filled with exciting challenges, creative hooks and memorable experiences, all designed to inspire a lifelong love of learning.