Our Curriculum

Our DBCPS community grows together, developing enthusiastic, determined, independent learners who believe in themselves, are respectful and strive for excellence.

Our curriculum ensures learning is engaging, exciting and relevant to the needs of our children in our diverse DBCPS community. Our knowledge rich curriculum teaches the skills and knowledge to create life-long learners through its purposeful learning journey always building on what children have learnt before and developing a passion to learn more in the future.

Our curriculum aims to develop

High aspirations
Self motivation and resilience
Excellent communication skills
Enterprising problem solvers
Pride in producing high quality end products
Collaboration skills through working together
Working for real life
Reflection and evaluation

Diversity and multiculturalism are important to us at DBCPS. We name our classes after important people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. We believe it is important for all children to have role models and aspirations. The heritage of our children and families are celebrated at the start of the year through the ‘Our Heritage’ topic. Each year group looks at a country that our children are from and celebrates the traditions of that place.

The curriculum at DBCPS follows the National Curriculum. Each seasonal term wider curriculum lessons focus on Geography, History or Science. Each topic is driven by an ‘Overarching Question’ which is answered as children learn more about a topic. e.g. Were the Vikings heroes or villains? (Y4 History)

The learning in English is linked to the Wider Curriculum topic. This ensures that children have opportunities to use and apply knowledge from their wider curriculum subjects. English learning covers the full range of writing genres over the year and, where genres are repeated, children discuss their prior learning in that genre before the start. Guiding reading is taught in whole class groups and we follow the One Education Reading Gem scheme. Teachers choose texts based on topic links, vocabulary included or gems demonstrated.

At the end of each seasonal term we invite parents in to share the learning for the term. During the final week children create pieces of work to share with the parents that go toward answering the term’s overarching question. This proves as a great opportunity for pupils to apply the skills that have been taught during the topic – including maths, English and all other curriculum areas as appropriate. The parent sharing event for each class has a clear focus and a purpose for example, a museum, a visitor centre, a feast, an art gallery, a debate, a drama presentation and speeches have all been used in the past, but there are endless possibilities.

During each topic unit, the learning needs to reference the overarching question as much as possible so that pupils are reminded of the purpose and reason for their learning. Answering the overarching question regularly gives pupils constant opportunities to use and apply their wider curriculum skills.

To find out more about our curriculum please see the whole school overview and termly content organisers below, click on the individual subject pages or email our curriculum leaders via the school office: office@dbcps.kent.sch.uk

Our Curriculum Map

Whole School Curriculum Overview PDF

Core Content Organisers

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6

The role of SEND at DBCPS

At DBCPS all teachers are responsible and accountable for the progress and development of all pupils in their class including pupils that access support from specialist staff and teaching assistants. Quality first teaching, adapting for pupils’ needs, is the first step in responding to pupils who have SEND. ‘Quality First’ teaching is regularly monitored and there is a focus on continual improvement of the teaching of all pupils. This includes reviewing and, where necessary, improving teachers’ understanding of strategies to identify and support vulnerable pupils. Close liaison is maintained with all members of staff by the SENCO to ensure that pupils are identified as having SEND if they do not make adequate progress once they have had appropriate interventions/adjustments and good quality personalised teaching.

School Trips and Experiences

Within our curriculum we identify relevant experiences that we believe our children will engage in and, most importantly, learn from. Children will either go on experiences outside the school to enhance their learning, or we welcome visitors into DBCPS to ignite the learning within the classroom.

Residentials

For many years our Yr6 cohort have been fortunate to attend Kingswood residential trips to develop their teamwork, self-esteem, confidence and outside learning skills. This compliments the termly experiences that all children experience at DBCPS. Hands on learning and experiences are key to children being able to write with meaning.

Additional Celebrations

We enrich our pupils with a range of before school, lunchtime and after school clubs. These clubs celebrate a variety of sports and fitness; the arts – singing, dancing, drama, speaking and listening. We also regularly welcome our parenting community into school to our parent sharing events where children can demonstrate, with pride, the outstanding work they have produced as part of their topic that term. These events are always enjoyable and provide a platform for our children to develop their speaking and listening skills amongst many others.