Curriculum

Our Vision

Let Your Light Shine

We are a safe, happy, inclusive school community where each individual is known and valued. Through our nurturing environment all develop resilience and self-worth to recognise their value as a bearer of God’s light. Strengths and talents are celebrated, whilst knowing that mistakes are an opportunity to learn and grow. Curiosity and enquiry are promoted in our curriculum, bringing learning to life through rich opportunities, knowledge and experiences. All are empowered to be friends for others, able to make change both locally and globally, shining their light with courage and using their voice respectfully to make a positive difference.

Curriculum Intent

At Lympne Church of England Primary School, we teach a curriculum that is exciting, inspiring and imaginative. Our children love to engage in thinking, questioning and learning. High aspirations for all, creativity, sport and outdoor learning hold a prominent place in our curriculum.

In order for our pupils to be well prepared for the next phase of their education and life, our curriculum and its implementation are designed to develop pupils who are curious, enquiring, confident and independent. Alongside these qualities needed for academic success, our Christian values pervade our approach where developing a sense of friendship, courage, resilience and respect and are equally as important.

At Lympne Church of England Primary School, every child is valued as an individual and experiences the feeling of success in a wide range of curriculum areas. Our curriculum helps to build the children’s self-esteem and self-confidence, so that they feel capable, confident, empowered and ready to tackle any challenge they may face, letting their light shine.

We nurture our children to be friends for others and to respect each other, as well as everybody within our school community, hence letting their light shine within it and beyond.

Recognising and understanding everyone’s unique and special talents and enabling all children to believe that anything is possible is at the heart of all we do. The children strive to work cooperatively to enable everyone to succeed. All children are welcomed into the Lympne family from their first day at our school. Pupils in Early Years Foundation Stage immediately feel part of the school community through a carefully structured induction and are supported the whole school community who nurture and care for them.

At Lympne Church of England Primary School, we pride ourselves on ensuring children’s mental wellbeing is a priority and carefully nurtured and supported. We know our children as individuals, have an incredibly caring staff and work closely with families to provide additional support tailored to individual needs where needed. Children’s wellbeing, both mentally and physically, is as much of a priority as academic development.

We carefully monitor children’s progress with their personal development and our well planned and thoughtful approach to SMSC helps to ensure that every child is well cared for and supported.

Our balanced approach to the curriculum is not at the expense of high standards in core subject areas. High standards and enabling children to reach national expectations and above is of vital importance if they are to succeed at the next stage of their education and go on to achieve their full potential.

Our full and rich curriculum, with its excellent range of experiences, ensures that every pupil at Lympne Church of England Primary School makes excellent progress both academically and personally and is able to let their light shine. We are an inclusive school and are experienced in adapting our curriculum to meet the needs of all learners.

Our school grounds and local area provides a fantastic resource for teaching our curriculum. Children regularly attend our on-site Forest School, where our specialist teacher creates an amazing array of activities to support wellbeing and learning. We enjoy close links with Lympne Church and Lympne Castle and visit on a regular basis. Our Christmas Carol Concert at Lympne Castle is something the children will always remember!

Our teachers love to bring learning to life through topic Hook Days. Our Early Years children enjoy boarding their aeroplane and heading off on safari, whereas our older children are invited to come dressed in topic linked costume for the day and arrive to a fully themed classroom with a range of exciting learning planned for the day ahead.

We offer a strong PE curriculum and are working towards our Platinum Sports Mark award this year. We welcome a range of visiting teachers to enhance our offer and our lower Key Stage pupils swim locally. Pupils also learn about healthy eating by growing produce and cooking across the school.

We are active in making the most of our local area, including regularly visiting the church and castle, as well as going on a number of topic related trips locally and further afield. Our children explore Canterbury Cathedral, attend Young Voices at the O2 and gain a great deal from the residential trip in their final year. We attend many local sporting fixtures and work closely with our local secondary school to produce some amazing dance work, as well as visiting their farm.

Through our curriculum, pupils develop a good understanding of the history, culture and geography beyond Lympne to enable them to have a wider understanding of the world on which to build.

Each class leads a Courageous Advocacy project, where children are empowered to be able to make change both locally and globally, shining their light with courage and using their voice respectfully to make a positive difference. Projects include supporting local causes, such as the Salvation Army foodbank, as well as environmental and animal charities. Each autumn we welcome a visitor from The Child of Hope Charity and children are able to see how their fundraising has made a positive difference.

We aim for our curriculum to be relevant to each child in the school, regardless of their age, gender, individual circumstances or academic ability. We think carefully about how curriculum skills develop as a child grows older, and the key knowledge they need to learn at each stage. The subject leaders team take responsibility for overseeing this. The content of each subject is sequential, building on prior learning. Adaptive teaching ensures all pupils can access the curriculum at the level that is right for them.

Reading has a very high priority at Lympne. Carefully sequenced phonics and reading skills are taught on a daily basis and developing reading for enjoyment is key. Each classroom has a designated reading area and our library has a wide range of engaging fiction and non-fiction texts. Pupils also read to an adult in school on a regular basis and a reading diary enables a supportive commentary between home and school. Teachers in all classes read to the children every day and a reading challenge, library challenges, a Book Club and author visits enhance provision further.

High expectations and high academic standards are important elements of our school. Our focus on whole class reading, promoting fluency and mastery in maths, supporting children to have a broad vocabulary and providing meaningful cross-curricular writing opportunities are some of the ways we have focused on ensuring pupils leave our school thoroughly prepared for the next stage of their education.

Curriculum Implementation

At Lympne Church of England Primary School, our curriculum is planned carefully to allow pupils to make links between subjects, retrieve and build upon their knowledge.

Our curriculum is under constant review in response to developments in education, our local context and our intent for the children. We carefully consider, through regular staff and smaller team meetings, how our curriculum will meet the needs of all our pupils. Adaptive teaching allows us to make the learning accessible to our pupils' range of abilities and interests. Pupil voice to inform our provision is an important area of monitoring for our subject leaders.

At Lympne Church of England Primary School, our curriculum is enhanced by a strong offer of extra-curricular clubs including art, Lego, reading, wellbeing, drawing, choir, film, history, board games, dance, hula, multi-sports and football. We also love to celebrate the children’s achievements seeing how they let their light shine outside school, for example through arts, sports or by being a good citizen.

Curriculum Impact

The impact of our curriculum can be seen in the standards our children attain at the end of primary school. Children at Lympne Church of England Primary School make good progress and attain consistently better than national expectations at the end of key stage 2. In addition to our success in reading, writing and maths, our provision of enrichment opportunities enables pupils to achieve high standards across all areas of the curriculum. Recent examples include our dance show at a local secondary school which enabled the children to perform in a theatre. Links with the Creative Quarter in Folkestone further develop children’s knowledge of different local authors and artists.

Our pupils also demonstrate the impact of our curriculum through their behaviour for learning; children are engaged, confident and successful learners. Lympne pupils feel motivated and are not afraid of ‘having a go’. They have a growth mindset philosophy and understand that when they can’t do things, they can’t do things yet! They enjoy sharing their learning with each other and visitors.

Visitors to Lympne Church of England Primary School often comment on how welcoming and caring the school is and how well we know the children. Visitors notice the behaviour of the children, who are caring and supportive of each other as well as being very polite and responsive.

The impact can be seen in the way our pupils make the transition to their next school. Feedback from secondary schools that Lympne Church of England Primary School children move onto is overwhelmingly positive about their behaviour, levels and attitudes to learning. Children are well-rounded, independent, confident learners and ready for the next stage of their education.