Quality of Education

At Uplands Junior school we aim to provide the children with a curriculum which is broad, well-balanced and above all stimulates excites and engages them to learn as well as promotes personal development. We promote the spiritual, social, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of our pupils and seek to prepare them for opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. Through a positive, inclusive and caring environment with “Respect For All” and the UN convention on the rights of a child at its heart we provide the opportunity for every child to reach their full potential in all areas of the curriculum.

We deliver the programmes of study that meet the requirements of the National Curriculum 2014. The National curriculum provides an outline of the core knowledge and skills around which our staff can plan and develop progressive lessons and schemes of work as well as teaching subject specific vocabulary. We use a thematic approach to delivering the curriculum building upon the work of our KS1 feeder school(s). We aim to develop through our curriculum both powerful subject knowledge that gives pupils new ways of thinking and powerful personal knowledge that gives them the character, dispositions, attitudes and habits to succeed in life in whatever career and work path they choose.

Alongside core skills and knowledge we aim to develop learning behaviours which will support our pupils through into their adult life. These include resilience, taking risks, working hard, pushing oneself and trying new things. We use the 7 principles from The Art of Brilliance to support our work in this area.

We provide our pupils with a range of curriculum enhancement activities to strengthen learning and make it even more enjoyable and engaging. This includes trips and visits out of school, workshops and visitors into school as well as a broad range of extra-curricular clubs.

The compulsory subjects under the new National Curriculum are as follows: English, Maths, Science, Art and Design, Computing, Design Technology, Language, Geography, History, Music and Physical Education. The teaching of Religious Education is statutory and here at Uplands we followed the Wolverhampton Agreed Syllabus.

English and Maths are a fundamental part of each day at Uplands. Learning to read and promoting the Love of Reading are central to our school. Teachers seek to make as many cross-curricular links as possible so that the skills taught in these subjects can be applied in a range of contexts.

Our Vision

At Uplands Junior School, our vision is to create a safe, positive and stimulating environment in which all members of the school community learn and grow in confidence, knowledge and skills.

Working together, we want to nurture personal talents, discover new ones and encourage everyone to be the best they can be.

We want to build a culture of respect for each other, for our environment and for ourselves.

We want our children to leave with a sense of personal achievement and pride in their school and community, equipped with the emotional, social and practical skills for their next challenge.

Our Values

Our values are reflected in our whole school motto:

Respect For All

‘Respect for All’ underpins everything we do at Uplands Junior School. We hold The Rights Respecting School Award (RRSA). This helps pupils to grow into confident, caring and responsible young citizens both in school and within the wider community. Along with this the British Values of Democracy, The Rule of Law, Individual Liberty, Mutual Respect and Tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs form our school values and are embedded in our culture.

Our Aims

Through our culture, curriculum and practices we aim:

To provide a secure, happy, attractive and inclusive environment where all children and staff are given full opportunity to develop the abilities they possess and reach their full potential
To help all children become resilient learners, to develop lively, enquiring minds, the ability to question and argue rationally and to apply themselves to tasks and physical skills.

To increase staff and children’s knowledge, skills, experience, understanding and imagination and to provide them the opportunities to challenge themselves, learn from their experiences and grow in confidence
To provide engaging and quality teaching that recognises personal needs, effort, achievement and progress
To engage parents in school life and their children’s education through active participation and effective communication ensuring a shared understanding and reinforcement of our school values
To work in partnership with each other, with parents, with other schools and the wider community to develop support networks and enrichment opportunities that enhance learning for staff and children.
To instil respect for religious and moral values, and tolerance for other races, religions and ways of life and to help pupils to understand the world in which they live
To put the wellbeing of the children and our staff at the heart of our school
To assist children to come to terms with their own physical and emotional developments to ensure, wherever possible, that each child will grow into a mature, creative, tolerant, and independent adult well able to play a full and constructive role in a rapidly changing technological world.

Written collectively by Governors, Staff, Parents and Pupils in 2018

Curriculum Intent

At Uplands we offer a range of discrete learning and thematic learning to enable knowledge and skills to be built up over time. Reading, Writing and Maths are developed throughout the curriculum as well as being taught as discrete subjects. All pupils have access to the same curriculum and where needed a range of scaffolds and additional support are provided to enable pupils to access the offer in full.

Subject range:

Every subject has a continuum of skills and knowledge which must be taught and built upon each year. The themes in place for each year group are as follows:

Curriculum Implementation

Uplands’ curriculum meets the statutory requirements of the National curriculum as follows:

Approaches to teaching

At Uplands we:

Have high expectations for learning
Promote positivity and happiness in learning using the Art of Brilliance principles
Promote “Respect For All”
Ensure inclusivity and a learning experience that is accessible to all
Promote resilience or “bouncebackability”
Underpin all aspects of the and school life with the UNICEF Rights of a child
Offer quality first teaching from all staff
Take account of individual needs, recognising different starting points and different social experiences
Provide specialist RE, MFL and Sports teaching
Differentiate to meet the needs of all learners
Teach transferable skills and provide cross curricular opportunities
Provide planned and quality interventions to support pupils’ learning and ability to access the full curriculum
Offer pre-teaching to targeted pupils
Use regular monitoring and assessment to check understanding and plan future learning
Listen to the voice of pupils in shaping our curriculum
Employ a consistent approach to behaviour across school
Employ the services of a specialist SEN teacher and Educational psychologist as required/liason with school based SENDCO
Seek opportunities to involve parents/carers to reinforce, support and celebrate learning
Offer Art therapy services to individual pupils as required
Consider the well-being of our school community and teach ways of managing positive mental health
Provide a variety of musical and sporting opportunities
Provide challenge activities in all curriculum areas
Provide a rigorous approach to the teaching of reading using Reading gem to develop "skills" and RWI phonic across the school to build upon learning in KS1

Enrichment visits and visitors:

Each theme or Topic is enhanced by visits out of school or visitors/workshops into school;

Birmingham Museum (Yr3)
Dudley Zoo (Yr3)
Sikh temple visit (Yr3)
Enginuity museum (Yr4)
Local fire station (Yr4)
Stratford on Avon Shakespeare experience (Yr4)
Christian church visit (Yr4)
Space centre (Yr5)
Safeside Birmingham (Yr5)
Cosford museum (Yr5)
Carding Mill Valley (Yr5)
Mosque visit (Yr5)
Black Country museum (Yr6)
Cleobury Mortimer for Year 6 residential visit (Yr6)
History off the page-Egyptian day in school (Yr3)
Timezone-Roman day in school (Yr4)
Wolverhampton Music school workshops (as appropriate)

Enrichment weeks and activities:

The following enrichment activities take place annually:

Science week (Spring term)
Health and well-being week (Spring term)
Fairtrade fortnight (Spring term)
Arts week (Summer term)
UNICEF outright campaign (Autumn term)
Year 4 charity sale afternoon (Spring term)
Year 6 Macmillan coffee afternoon (Autumn term)
Year 4 Christmas carol concert (Autumn term)
Year 6 end of year production (Summer term)
Class assemblies for all classes in Years 3 and 5 (Autumn and Spring terms) to celebrate festivals and events reflective of our school community 9eg Easter, Ramadan, Remembrance, Vaisakhi)
Sports days for lower and upper school
Musical showcases and concerts for all year groups

There are many opportunities for parents/carers to come into school to share and celebrate the work and successes of their children including parents’ evenings, parent engagement sessions, workshops, performances/assemblies, musical showcases, sports fixtures, art gallery afternoon, sports days, book fair

School awards and recognition:

UNICEF Rights Respecting School Award-Silver level
Fairtrade “Fairaware” and “Fairactive”
Sports Mark “Gold” 5 years running and then “Platinum” for first time in July 2019
Science Mark
Art of Brilliance “Outstandingly happy school”
Carnegie centre of excellence for Mental Health Bronze level (September 2019)
Well Being in the workplace award (December 2020)

Extra-curricular activities and clubs 2021-22:

At Uplands we offer a range of extra curricular activities to enrich and enhance our curriculum offer. All teaching staff lead a club as part of their directed time and their offer links to the subject or curriculum area that they champion. There is a club offer in each year group that all children have access to if they wish. We also offer some "targeted" clubs and a whole range of sporting and physical activities. Some clubs incur a fee in order to pay external providers but we subsidise this for pupil premium pupils. In this academic year the following have or will be on offer:

Art club (for all Year 3)
Singing club (for all Year 3 and 4)
Design Technology club (for all Year 4)
Science club (for all Year 5)
Yoga club (for all Year 6)
Silent disco club (for all Year 6-late Spring/Summer)
Soccer 2000 daily football and sports club
Premier sports breakfast clubs Dodgeball and Gymnastics
Netball
Tag rugby
Multi skills
Cool kids
Bush tribe club
Coding computer club
Maths club
Rounders
Authorly literacy club
Library
Digital ambassadors
Holiday physical activity clubs led by Soccer 2000
Homework club (created from pupil voice and on offer to all pupils)
Additional outdoor learning sessions offered to all school
We also offer a breakfast and an after school club child care facility

Curriculum Impact

By implementing the Intent , children will leave Uplands confident in the areas identified in our overarching school aims

All children have been given full opportunity to develop the abilities they possess and reach their full potential
Children will be resilient learners, have developed lively, enquiring minds, have the ability to question and argue rationally and to apply themselves to tasks and physical skills.
Children’s knowledge, skills, experience, understanding and imagination have been developed to provide them the opportunities to challenge themselves, learn from their experiences and grow in confidence
Children will have respect for religious and moral values, and tolerance for other races, religions and ways of life
Children will have come to terms with their own physical and emotional developments to ensure, wherever possible, that they will grow into a mature, creative, tolerant, and independent adult who will able to play a full and constructive role in a rapidly changing technological world.

We are proud of the achievements of our pupils at Uplands and value the opinions of all stakeholders in how we can further develop our school to become even better. We measure our impact in the following ways: