Rooted in our Christian understanding of life in its fullness, NCSF schools are safe aspirational learning communities where all are nurtured and cherished to shine and flourish as lights in the world.

North Cotswolds School Federation

In the North Cotswold Schools Federation our curriculum is the vehicle that enables our vision to be delivered.

Our curriculum aims to develop our pupils by providing:

• Nurture – A curriculum that develops every child’s ability to care, respect and nurture themselves, others and the world in which they live.
• Cherish - A curriculum that ensures that every child feels valued and cherished
• Shine - A curriculum that provides a range of opportunities, designed to develop every child’s sense of what is possible for them to achieve and shine as individuals.
• Flourish – A curriculum that ensures all children have the skills, knowledge and crucially, the attitude to flourish in all aspects of their lives and to embrace the ‘ows, wows, and nows’ that life presents.

We follow a broad and balanced curriculum that is rigourous, coherent, sequential, progressive, engaging and fun. We use an enquiry based approach to deliver the statutory skills and knowledge of the National Curriculum. Putting questioning at the heart of the schools’ ethos and culture helps our children to be engaged in their learning, deepen their thinking and empowering them to become lifelong learners who are well prepared for secondary school and their future lives, careers and contributions in our society.

Each class has three ‘Big Questions’, one for each long term. Each question provides a broad range of interesting topics to explore and investigations to carry out, allowing subjects to come alive for the children.  The aim of the ‘Big Question’ is that it is not something that is easily answered. It provides a reason for children’s learning opportunities and shapes the lessons that are planned for across the year.

Learning is characterised by the following elements:

• The starting point for learning is an age-appropriate ‘Big Question’, to promote deep thinking and reflection. Children are encouraged to create their own questions in response to it.
• Children are taught the skills of, and have opportunities to: research evidence to answer questions, explain their findings and formulate arguments and justifications.
• Children are taught the skills of, and have opportunities to: collaborate with other children to share ideas and skills, and extend their thinking.
• Children develop the skills of demonstrating or explaining concepts orally, concretely, visually and abstractly.
• Children have the chance to revisit their leaning, develop their ideas and then apply their knowledge to a different context.  

The ‘Big Question’ themes provide the framework for the teaching of Computing, Science, Art and Design, Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education, Design and Technology, Geography, History, Languages, Music and PE. Whilst links are made between the subjects learning in each discipline is kept separate. Some subjects need to be taught discretely and this varies depending on the nature of the ‘Biq Question’