Curriculum Aims

Bethany School aims to provide a holistic Christian education for all its pupils by approaching the curriculum, and other aspects of teaching and learning and assessment from a Biblical worldview. It is our aim to be a Christian community in which all pupils grow in character, faith, knowledge, understanding and wisdom. Bethany School’s curriculum includes a topic based Christian curriculum unique to the school that has been developed to integrate our Christian faith through the curriculum, as well as some National Curriculum programmes of study and GCSE specifications.

 

Our curriculum aims/intends to:

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• Support pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development in an inclusive school.

• Provide a broad and balanced Christian education for our pupils that equips them with the skills, knowledge and wisdom to access future learning, employment and to succeed in life.

• Ensure equal access to learning for all our pupils, with high expectations for every pupil and appropriate levels of challenge and support.

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Within this school structure the delivery of the curriculum can be broken down into three main areas.

 

1. Reception aged children follow the EYFS statutory framework, covering the 17 areas of learning and development and are assessed against the early learning goals.  This is delivered within our topic based curriculum as part of a faith based approach to laying the foundation of learning.     

2. Children in Years 1 to 9 follow a blended topic based Christian curriculum that Bethany School have developed ourselves. In addition to the topic based curriculum, programmes of study in Maths and English are followed based on National Curriculum material.                                            

3. Pupils in years 10 and 11 follow GCSE programmes of study.

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Topic Based Curriculum

 

The Bethany School topic based curriculum is broadly based on nine themes found in the early chapters of the book of Genesis. Each theme provides the starting point for one term's work, and is followed, as part of a three year cycle, at an appropriate level, by all pupils from Rec/Y1 to Year 9.

 

The Topic themes are:

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Working through the topics the pupils will be taught the Christian belief that God alone is eternal and that all things originate in Him (Beginnings). God’s activities (Work) involve making, sustaining, redeeming and renewing creation and by acting in this way. God reveals His character to, and through the created realms (Water, Dry Land, Living Things, the Earth in Space). The whole of creation declares God’s nature and attributes but people (People) are especially the object of His desire to communicate (Communication) with His creation. In the nations (Nations) topic the children investigate God’s dealing with Abraham, His covenant with His chosen people and the pattern modelled for us (in the 21st century) by Abraham as the ‘father of many nations’.

 

At Bethany School we are committed to developing our own distinctively Christian curriculum, based upon biblical principles.  For each topic we use a Biblical Context as a starting point, which contains relevant biblical passages to prompt staff and family afternoon organisers.   Through our topic based approach we provide a broad and balanced curriculum.  We use national schemes or materials where appropriate, and evaluate new initiatives, adopting examples of good practice. The curriculum areas adopted by the National Curriculum are covered by the Bethany School curriculum. Areas covered include: English, Maths, Science, Art, Design and Technology, History, Geography, French, Physical Education, Drama, PSHE, Religious Studies, Music and Computing.

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