“Great learning, great teaching and great fun"
International Primary Curriculum motto
Learning must be exciting and fun. The environment at Braywood is creative and stimulating; we want children to develop a love of learning. Our International Primary Curriculum is completely driven by the National Curriculum. It delivers these learning objectives in an engaging, inspiring and fun way which the children really enjoy.
We aim towards mastery in every subject
Through our comprehensive curriculum vision we have a clear process for learning that aims towards the mastery of a specific stage of comprehension. Skills, knowledge and understanding are built upon from year to year with a clear focus that spirals throughout the curriculum.
Humanities
The humanities programme of learning is lots of fun with wow days, associated high quality trips and visitors all with an overarching sense of real purpose in the work. History and Geography are generally taught in the form of topic-based assignments where all subjects have been carefully linked together to provide a relevant, imaginative and enjoyable body of work. Assessment is built around three areas: skills, knowledge and understanding.
In these subjects, children explore both their immediate environment and that of other parts of the world. In History children extend their understanding of the past, present and future, encouraging an awareness and appreciation of the world in which they live. In Geography lessons children consider challenging issues such as sustainability and climate change.
Science
Through our Science curriculum we intend to give children a wide range of practical experiences in order to develop early scientific skills and attitudes. Science helps children to understand more about the world around them and encourages them to question aspects that they do not understand. This subject is taught discretely every week and through the International Primary Curriculum in a topic based project.
Our children are given sound and progressive understanding of fundamental scientific concepts related to life and living processes in animals and plants; materials and their properties and physical processes such as forces, electricity, light and sound. Teacher's have mapped out what mastery looks like and teach to these high standards.
Computing and Design
Our goal is to provide children with the skills they will need to live in the 21st century. We are proud of the computing facilities at our school and we are constantly updating our equipment to ensure our children have access to the best.
We teach computing as a discrete subject as well as offering opportunities for our pupils to use and develop their technology skills across the curriculum. Once children understand the basic skills they can quickly apply their computing knowledge to a whole manner of experiences to enhance and extend their learning. The expectations in computing are high and involve improving children's basic skills, specific design challenges and programming projects. At every stage children learn how to use this medium safely and responsibly and to be SMART. We have two Internet Safety Days every year.
Art and Design Technology
At Braywood we are passionate about the Arts. Creativity improves a child’s self-esteem and they are more open to ideas, keen to explore, cope with risks and work with others. All innovation and enterprise is fuelled by creativity. This area of work is all under the umbrella of STEAM (Science, Technology, Electronics, Arts and Mathematics) and there are a wide range of opportunities available to develop the children's skills in these subjects. To extend our DT curriculum, not only do we have an ambitious range of assignments, children visit Legoland to explore a more specialist technological environment with high quality teachers.
We develop a critical awareness of the purposes of Art in different times and cultures and how to interpret those works of art. In turn we seek to improve the students' artistic skills. In design and technology students develop their designing and making skills and the ability to create high quality products. These subjects are taught discretely to ensure that we can aim towards mastery where the curriculum explores a rich and diverse artistic experience.
Music and the Arts
Braywood has a strong musical tradition. We have a specialist Music teacher who works with the whole school. All children sing, compose use percussion instruments, listen to music and are taught basic notation. Talent is spotted quickly and given the opportunity to grow. We also have additional specialist teachers who teach piano, brass in school and we even have a Rock Band. We have strong partnerships including Berkshire Maestros.
As a school we perform on a regular basis through our Family Assemblies and then more specifically in our Harvest, Christmas and Easter Performances. Our older children join in with any local initiative such as singing at the Hexagon and they work on a Summer Concert on the stage in Windsor in front of their parents. Children audition for these parts just as they audition to be in our Chamber Choir. All of these experiences are fundamental for a child's appreciation of the Arts.
French
French is taught in an enjoyable, interesting and relevant way across the whole school. The younger children learn the subject through song, rhyme and games whereas the older children have more specific lessons. Digital programmes is used as a tool for pronunciation. The older children explore the subject in more depth where they act our going to a cafe, speak French in simple sentences, write down simple phrases and learn more about living in France.