At Holy Trinity we strive to nurture the children to have a love of learning, to love each other and God. We follow the Government’s national curriculum but deliver it using teaching methods founded through research into learning and cognitive science from Sweller, Kirschner & Rosenshine.
The National Curriculum underpins our learning and teaching; we are committed to delivering this in an aspirational, inspiring and relevant way. The fundamental aims of our curriculum are for our children to achieve the highest possible standards, reaching their full potential; for the curriculum to be accessible for all and for our children to develop a love of learning. Our curriculum aims to create opportunities that enable pupils to develop knowledge and vital skills that are essential to learning both in school and throughout life.
Our curriculum is shaped and driven by our Christian values, of love, aspiration and community, combined with our passion for high quality education. It gives our children a deep knowledge and understanding of the world around them, enabling them to love one another as thoughtful and respectful members of our community. We develop our children’s social, moral, cultural and spiritual development through experiences and carefully considered local opportunities to support our curriculum. Our pupils will extend their learning through curriculum visits to local areas of interest such as Richmond Park, Kew Gardens, Ham Common, the British Museum, Sheen air raid shelter, Hampton Court Palace, participate in the Rise swimming Gala and Barnes Literary Festival. We further enrich the children’s learning beyond the curriculum through residential trips away, inviting visitors into school, and different themed weeks and days. Science Week, Art’s Week, International day, Book Day, HT’s Got Talent, the summer concert and class assemblies are all important when teaching a love of learning and incorporating our diverse community into school life. Here at Holy Trinity we are committed to offering as many high quality enrichment opportunities in sport, music, creative arts and drama.
Knowledge is explicitly taught in small, manageable chunks to avoid cognitive overload. It is revisited and revised and we use daily challenges to help the children’s learning move from their short term memory to their long term learning. We encourage our pupils to learn in an active manner using problem-solving and active learning. Examples would be visits to Kew Gardens to learn about how plants grow, the use of the River Thames in Geography studies and entering the Primary Maths Challenge.
The daily teaching of reading, writing and maths gives the children the opportunity to become highly articulate, and extend their vocabulary. We encourage our children to read a broad range of texts within and outside the classroom encouraging their love of learning. The children particularly enjoy using the two library spaces to choose their own books. At Holy Trinity we teach Latin in years 3-6 which gives our children the knowledge of where words have derived from and support their understanding of English grammar.
We have the highest expectations of all of our learners and set no ceiling for the performance of any child. We set aspirational targets for the continual improvement of our children and consider carefully, relevant opportunities where we can stretch and challenge them. We ensure that all our children, including those with SEN or English as an additional language, gain the benefits of quality first teaching in the classroom. Where needed, children’s learning is adapted (scaffolded) to enable them to access the learning and achieve the desired outcomes. Every effort is made to ensure that all pupils, regardless of their needs, can take part in all activities within and beyond the curriculum of which include learning within the classroom, our trips, residentials and our clubs. Support is offered to families where possible.
Our teachers plan their teaching in year group teams to ensure cohesion and parity of learning experiences for our children. Their planning is used as a guide for teaching and learning; regular assessment and feedback from the children help us to adapt our teaching to the needs of our pupils.
Each subject area is led and developed by a member of our staff. They are responsible for ensuring all other members of the team are kept up to date with current, relevant developments and changes; the monitoring of how their subject is taught, children’s progress and what actions the school needs to take to ensure high quality teaching and learning.
The impact of our values: aspiration, love and community, have created a wonderful, nurturing learning environment for all our children. We assess in a variety of different ways throughout the year and ensure that we moderate these both within school and externally within the borough. Our subject leaders ensure aspirational, high quality teaching and learning is consistently delivered in their subject across the school through monitoring their subject area regularly. This takes the form of lesson observations (learning walks), meeting with pupils (pupil voice) and looking at the children’s work (book looks).
‘Holy Trinity is a wonderful school, all the teachers are so committed and make the learning experience exceptional for the children. Children are treated as individuals and their learning experience has been flexible to accommodate their personality and the way they learn, it’s not one size fits all’
‘Delighted with the progress my children are making at school. They enjoy lessons and the safe and nurturing environment helps them to grow socially as well as academically.’
‘My son has settled very well and could not be happier, his development has been noticeable and he’s made amazing progress.’
‘ I think that music in our school is really good because there is a lot of variety – there is always a choice of pieces and it’s always taught to you in a fun way that’s much easier to understand.’
‘I enjoy that everyone is treated fairly’
‘I enjoy learning and having fun.’
Year 5 science: ‘Life cycles. Great vocabulary used: metamorphosis, fertilised, egg, sperm, gamete. great science displays. Good discussions – whole class and between children. Looked at exceptions to the rule. Variety of life cycles – not just one. Task provided challenge. Good starters with recap of previous learning. Clear progression from life cycles in EY.”
