At Buryfields our core values drive everything that we do in school and these are:

Be kind. Be confident. Love learning.

The teaching of children to ‘be kind’ is broad; it is being kind to others, being kind to the environment, but above all being kind to themselves. This is the first step in becoming confident, resilient learners who are able to succeed both now and later in life. We teach our values through our Learning Powers which are embedded throughout our curriculum and in all of our everyday interactions; they are the language of our school. They are taught, fostered and encouraged both explicitly in lessons and implicitly in our day-to-day behaviours.

Our curriculum and broader holistic intentions for our children are captured in our Buryfields Foundations which are at the bottom of this page. These underpin all of the learning and teaching that takes place in our school – it is Buryfields on a page!

We are hugely proud of the curriculum we provide for our pupils. It is rich, ambitious and responsive to the needs and interests of the unique set of children we are teaching now. We of course follow the National Curriculum Programmes of Study and the Early Years Foundation Stage but these account for only part of what we teach every week, every term and every year. Our key learning intentions for each subject and area are driven by the importance of place. As a school with a high number of Service Pupils, children may be with us for the full three years, but many are with us for a shorter time. It is therefore important for us to ensure that whilst they are here that they develop a sense of place to ensure that they know they are an important part of the school and wider community. With this in mind, a driving factor of our curriculum is teaching about our locality whilst also appreciating and celebrating the diverse locations many children come from or have experienced. 

As an infant school we recognise that we are a small but vital part of the child’s learning journey. Through comprehensive dialogue with pre-schools and parents, we are well-informed about the starting points of children before they join us in Year R. With the majority of our Year 2 children moving on to Mayhill Juniors, subject leaders have developed relationships with their junior counterparts to ensure that whilst we are ‘only’ an infant school with an infant curriculum, that this is part of a longer continuum of education. Despite the fact that we are two schools, the children who go from Year R to Year 6 in Odiham are still given a cohesive and coherent curriculum.

By the time they leave our school, we aim for children to have a passion for reading as we recognise the impact that this has not only on their journey through KS2 but for life chances. Reading and the love of books is everywhere, and is prioritised in homework, in the environment and in all subjects. See more about this in our Reading section on the website. They will also be confident writers and mathematicians, armed with secure foundations to ensure their readiness for KS2.

In the Foundation Subjects, Progressions of Knowledge and Skills for each subject area clearly outline our expectations for what will be achieved by pupils in each year group, ensuring that children acquire knowledge in a well-sequenced and logical way. In addition to the national curriculum requirements, we have set specific learning intentions that reflect our location and community.  See each curriculum page for more information.

The retention of key knowledge is fostered in all subjects, and there is a cohesive approach to ensuring that children can remember what they have learned. We use the ‘Let’s remember, let’s recap’ approach in every lesson, as well as providing opportunities for children to revisit previous learning through play, for example jigsaws or games. Leaders also select books for teachers to share with their class on a topic they have already learned about, prompting discussion and retrieval of previously taught content.

At Buryfields we teach in a whole school topic based approach. By having a theme that runs across all year groups, it provides a sense of unity across the whole school and opportunities for children to collaborate with those beyond their classroom.  We choose topics in response to world events, our children and staff but also have some familiar favourites.  Whilst we do plan with a theme, all foundation subjects are taught discretely so that children understand what it means to be learning 'History', 'Geography', 'Art and Design' and so on. 

We believe that learning should take place in and out of the classroom, in our amazing grounds as well as on visits to the village and further afield.  We also believe that, as fantastic as our teachers are, the children have much to learn and gain from others and we have built many great working relationships with people in our community, such as the padres, curates and vicars, local residents from the RAF, the alms houses and historical societies, to artists, musicians and performers who have skill sets we can only dream of!