‘Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all’ – Aristotle

At Willow Lane, we believe in the power of education to transform lives. We ‘teach to the heart’ to engage and motivate our children and to develop their spirit of curiosity and wonder about the world around them. We provide excellent teaching, pastoral care and a diverse and challenging curriculum to enable all learners to achieve and be well prepared academically, socially and morally for the next stage of their learning.

We have created an ambitious and bespoke curriculum to meet the needs of our children, our community and the requirements of the National Curriculum. Our Willow Lane Curriculum sets out the key concepts and knowledge our children will learn and the skills they will apply in each unit. The learning is carefully sequenced and designed so our children develop strong foundations of knowledge and connections within and between subjects. Within this framework, teachers work with their children to adapt each topic to the strengths, needs and interests of their individual classes. Our curriculum puts an emphasis on values, outdoor and experiential learning, and ‘teaching to the heart’ to ensure all of our children achieve success and develop a life-long love of learning.

So what does this look like in the classroom? We know that our children need to be engaged before they can talk about their learning, and talk before they can write about it. We know they want to be ‘hands-on’ learners. We know that knowing more, allows you to do more. We know that children need lots of opportunities to grasp challenging concepts confidently. We know that sport is a great vehicle for developing character and values. As such, visitors will see busy classrooms full of energetic children engaged purposefully in their learning. They will hear children talking enthusiastically about their learning as they grapple with new ideas and knowledge. Visitors will experience English lessons that start with a work of art, brilliant stories or film clips; history lessons steeped in drama and children handling artefacts; geography lessons that begin with educational visits and fieldwork; science lessons happening around our woodland, vegetable beds or pond; children practising for sports competitions; art and music projects being designed for display in the city centre; or children coding apps and games. In short, we work hard create a warm, inclusive and enriching school environment- a place our children are excited to attend every day.

More detail for each year group and subject is provided in the documents below. Please note our school curriculum is constantly evolving to meet the needs of our children and to ensure that it remains informed by best practice and is of the highest quality. As such, we have recently invested in updating our curriculum and some subjects require further work to meet the full expectations set out in this document so there remains some variation in curriculum presentation and design. Subject curriculums for science, geography, art and design, and design and technology follow our implementation principles. We expect the full curriculum to meet the aims of this document by September 2023. To find out more about the curriculum talk to the class teacher or contact the deputy headteacher (d.webster@willow.lancs.sch.uk).