As a starting point for our curriculum, we use the National Curriculum:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum

However, this is just a starting point and our curriculum goes beyond the National Curriculum to ensure that it meets the interests and needs of the children at Fairfield. Across KS2, we have approximately 120 Junior Leaders who work with subject leaders to review the content and delivery of our school curriculum. This helps us to respond quickly to any changes in the context of our school community and ensures that we cover everything required by the National Curriculum and topics and subjects that the children find interesting and relevant.

Our PSHE curriculum underpins our school ethos and vision and is a driving force in helping our children to become the responsible, happy and productive young people we hope to see. PSHE is a strength of our school and the curriculum for PSHE is regularly reviewed and adapted to ensure it constantly evolves to meet our children’s needs.

Our PE curriculum is another area in which Fairfield goes well beyond the demands of the National Curriculum. As well as targeting the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in PE, our curriculum is designed to teach and promote positive personal attitudes and leadership qualities that support children in their other studies and life beyond the classroom. We take part in numerous sporting activities (both competitive sports and activities designed to promote engagement) and our children are proud of their achievements. We won the inaugural Tees Valley Sport PE and School Sport Funding Innovation Award in recognition of our commitment to developing a strong and evolving PE curriculum.

We also go beyond the National Curriculum by ensuring that all children in Years 3, 4 and 5 receive 30 hours of chess tuition every year. This takes place as a weekly lesson between September and June. Although the aim is to create hundreds of young people who simply enjoy playing chess, we have seen the added benefit of improved perseverance, problem-solving, sporting behaviour, kindness, and fabulous social skills. In addition, we have discovered some exceptional players who have enjoyed taking part in the local megafinals (with some qualifying for the northern gigafinals). To think that we would never have known about their skills had we not introduced chess as a new subject on the curriculum!