Curriculum

The May Park Primary Curriculum

At May Park Primary School, we want to equip children with the knowledge, confidence, skills, and empathy that will allow them to have rich, successful, and fulfilled lives. We are proud to provide our children with a curriculum that fosters curiosity and inspires creativity. We aim for our children to move to secondary school with the confidence and resilience to succeed.

We have developed our curriculum to be ambitious, intellectually challenging and well thought out. We believe that to empower our children we need; to develop their ability to read with deep understanding, to instil a desire to love language, and to able them to become articulate speakers who can write with precision and style.

Whether children join our school with English as their home language, or whether they learn the English language for the first time here with us, we ensure they are all provided with the teaching and nurture they need. Through our curriculum, children develop their ability to read, write, speak, and comprehend, so that they can seize the opportunities education brings.

We bring the world into our classrooms by celebrating the cultural and religious diversity that enriches the May Park community.  Our curriculum has a strong emphasis on encouraging children to be individuals, to learn about themselves as well as others and to be creative performers. We aim for children at May Park to leave us understanding that learning is an enjoyable and sometimes challenging journey that can take them in many different exciting directions.

Our curriculum is inclusive of all and takes into consideration the needs of all our children. We tailor the curriculum within each year group and class to the needs of the children so that it is accessible, stimulating and engaging for all. This is in line with the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014.

Throughout their time at May Park Primary, the children will be immersed in a curriculum which teaches the achievements of all cultures and celebrates our rich, diverse world. As a curriculum which promotes the contributions of all, to the world in which we live today, we aim to ensure that genuine aspiration is nurtured. We aim for our children to see themselves in the role models which our curriculum highlights and thus we expect all to aspire to be the very best version of themselves.

We enrich and embed our curriculum with educational visits and visitors into school to broaden and contextualise learning within and beyond the classroom. We take great care to enrich learning through first hand and practical experiences to promote children’s independence as learners and enable them to grow and develop in new learning environments. Examples of visits and visitors in subject areas;

  • English – theatre visits, visits by authors, poets (Lawrence Hoo, Cargo Curriculum) and theatre groups;
  • Science – use of the school grounds, Future Space Robotics Laboratory, History of science museum, visits to local sites;
  • Mathematics – use of shape and number trails in the local environment;
  • History – castle visits, local museums;
  • Geography – use of the locality for fieldwork, school site and woodlands;
  • Art and design – art gallery visits, use of the locality;
  • PE – a range of sporting fixtures, extra-curricular activities, visits by specialist coaches;
  • Music – a variety of specialist music teaching, Bristol University Symphonia, Bristol plays music, termly sings, end of year extravaganzas for parents to hear;
  • ICT – its use in local shops/libraries/secondary schools;
  • RE – visits to local centres of worship, visitors.
  • PSHE and citizenship – visits by local fire brigade and local police officers and health workers, local MP.
  • Drama – Kid Carpet projects, Bristol Old Vic, Little Bulb Theatre,
  • Citizenship – Working with University of West England – Black Joy Project