An Aspirational Curriculum:

We believe that each child at Rickleton has the potential to be successful in any area of curricular or extra-curricular life now and for their future. The curriculum they access must be the driver of this in offering them deep learning and inspirational experiences in a broad range of areas. Working out where their talents lie and the things they enjoy are a huge factor in this and we expect that all children give their all in all lessons.

In September 2023, we introduced our 'aspirational concepts' to support children and staff to understand the key skills and knowledge which they are building when studying a subject and where this could lead them in their future. We want our children to be driven by their future possibilities and see each lesson as a stepping stone towards this.

A Clear and Well planned Curriculum:

Subject leaders have worked hard to ensure that our curriculum fulfills not only national expectations but also the learning necessary to allow a child in Rickleton, in the North East of England, to be successful.

By carefully considering how knowledge and skills progress, ensuring that learning carefully builds on and consolidates prior knowledge, children have the best chance to feel confident and successful in their studies and to retain their learning as they move forward in their education.

The documents below show what we want children to achieve via the subject and how we plan to make this happen (commonly known as Intent, Implementation and Impact). They also show how topics and and skills are planned to give pupils a deep knowledge and hopefully a passion for the subject to support their future aspirations.

Our RE curriculum

At Rickleton Primary, we follow the local SACRE RE curriculum. This is designed to support the needs of the local community and is tailored towards ensuring that the knowledge children gain is relevant to the context of living in the North East of England. The document below shows the progression of topics and teaching that children will encounter across their time in school.

Visits and Visitors

In order to give our children a living, working knowledge of a wide range of religions, we encourage them to access visits and visitors which will give them an experience or religion as a life choice for people locally and around the world.

Lent and Easter with the House of Destiny

Building upon our growing relationship with the House of Destiny Church, to celebrate the start of Lent, worship leaders led assembly this week, discussing what Lent means to Christians. As part of our link with this local Church, Panashe, their very talented music lead, taught us two lovely Easter songs which we will sing together when we visit the Church to celebrate Easter later in the term.

Christmas at the House of Destiny

As part of our RE link to Christian festivals, and to ensure an awareness of diverse Christianity in the local community, we have developed links with the 'House of Destiny' Church, just across the road from the school. For the first time in 2023, Andrew and Panache, came to join our school assembly to begin advent. As part of the service, they taught us the song 'Joy to the World' and left us time to practise.

We then took this song, and several of our own, across to the Church building for the final assembly of term to celebrate Christmas. A wonderful service saw us celebrate with lots of congregational music, choir singing and reading by some pupils. 

Such a wonderful link so close to school and one which we hope will grow yet further over the coming years.

Videos from the service can be viewed here https://rickleton-primary-school.primarysite.media/playlist/christmas-raffle-2023

with photos below.

Easter Service

We had a lovely Easter Service for our children this year, as we were able to return to House of Destiny, which was our first visit since after the COVID 19 pandemic.  It was wonderful to see our children celebrating a religious festival in the local community and with Andrew from the House of Destiny.  Children worked together to sing a song that they were taught while they were there and they were also reminded of the importance of the Easter Story.  We also had readings from children from both key stages.  We hope to keep these links going at other key points throughout the year.

Christianity

Rev. Nick, from St George's Church in Harraton, visited school and talked to our EYFS children. His shared lots of information about his job and Christianity. He even brought some items from the Church showing signs and symbols which are importan in Christianity.

Celebrating Religion

As part of our RE, we want to make our children and families more aware of other religions as part of our focus on understanding and tolerance. Via our social media, we like to share different festivals and celebrations taking place linked to the yearly calendar. We hear from lots of our families from different cultures and religions who also feel that this makes them feel celebrated as part of the school community.

You can see some of the festivals we share below: