Catford is a diverse community in South East London with long established communities such as from the white working class and Afro Caribbean migration. Additional layers have been added more recently through migration from Africa, South East Asia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. At the same time, parts of Catford are becoming gentrified and this is creating a polarised segregation. General attitudes among children are shaped by an assumption that diversity is normal in all of the UK and that London is typical of the rest of the country. However, this awareness and acceptance of local diversity stems from a lack of knowledge of the factors that have shaped and explain it.

Our Curriculum is designed to narrow the gap for disadvantaged children, enriching and challenging all and promoting a sense of belonging for all. Our commitment to equity and social justice underpins all that we do, and our curriculum is used as the vehicle for affirming the identity of all pupils and equipping our children with rich knowledge and experiences. We view knowledge as a right for all, and equality of opportunity to a knowledge rich curriculum is key to enabling social engagement and flourishment.

We believe that the launchpad to building children’s wider cultural capital, is to value and celebrate the cultural capital or horizontal funds of knowledge, that they bring to school with them first. Our curriculum is designed to reflect all children’s, including black children’s’ histories, achievements, culture and politics, thus making it truly broad and balanced. We explore the role that black people have played in shaping Britain today and believe that children should read books that feature both white and black protagonists, so they can internalise this as the norm.

Our curriculum aims to give our children the powerful cultural and social capital they need to understand the world and shape the future to promote Sustainable Development. Therefore, we provide our children with a broad, balanced and experiential curriculum where they will be encouraged to develop critical thinking skills, enabling them to consider questions of social justice, inequality and environmental integrity which are pre-requisites for sustainable living, both locally and globally.

This will require the acquisition of key knowledge, concepts and study skills in the Arts, Sciences and Humanities, as well as practical opportunities to improve aspects of their locality or the situation of others. Children will be encouraged to foster curiosity about the society in which they live as well as embedding skills and knowledge for the future. Our local to global approach therefore, promotes active rather than passive learning and supports the overall school ethos which uses Metacognition (involving 10 learning attributes), Rights Respecting and Global Learning principles. Pupils will be able to consistently and continuously apply previously learned knowledge to new situations and settings so that they flourish.  

Individual responsibility and wisdom are at the heart of this, although it is also linked to the importance of collaboration, positive group identity and empathy for others. 

 An aesthetic appreciation of the world is also vital so that Nature and Human cultures are valued and nurtured. This contributes to personal well-being and positive attitudes to learning.

*We are using a political definition of Black. Black in this context refers to all peoples whose ancestors originate from countries in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, Central and South America and  Indigenous Nations.