What We Do
We believe that all children can achieve excellence and that a quality primary education provides the platform for lifelong success. We pride ourselves on developing curious learners, who engage readily with their learning, consistently demonstrate our values and want to do their very best with every opportunity. Excellent practices and systems in our school, support all children to be successful and confident.
At West Hill we offer a broad, creative and diverse curriculum which drives curiosity for knowledge, and which reflects the society we live in. Please contact the School Office if you would like detailed information on the curriculum we offer.
At West Hill We:
- Provide a broad and balanced curriculum
- Know that creativity is vital to ensure that we develop artistic, creative learners for the future
- Recognise that all children are individuals. We support their personal learning journey
- Celebrate the diverse community at West Hill School
- Promote positive mental health and emotional wellbeing
- Understand the importance of nurture and inclusion
- Ensure that all children reach their full potential
- Enable progress in all areas of learning
Reading, Writing and Maths:
The early skills of reading and writing are the vital building blocks for all learning. At West Hill we follow the Read Write Inc phonics approach in Early Years, Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1.
At the end of Year 2 and in KS2, we follow a whole school reading approach in order to deepen the children's understanding of a rich, diverse range of genre and authors with the intent of fostering a love of reading.
We recognise that the children at West Hill need a variety of language development opportunities. It is vital to develop their vocabulary to ensure that they make good progress in their writing skills.
Our approach to a language rich curriculum is also central to our Mathematics curriculum. We follow the Maths Mastery curriculum from Nursery through to Year 6. This ensures that all of our children develop a deep understanding of number and mathematical concepts and work towards true ‘mastery’ of number.
Foundation Subjects:
Alongside the core subjects, we teach the foundation subjects (Art, DT, Music, Geography, History, PSHE, RE, P.E and Computing) discretely.
We want our children to understand and appreciate the uniqueness of each discipline; to leave primary school understanding what each subject is. We want to promote a love and intrigue of each subject and do each one justice.
Where possible, we make connections with the wider curriculum as we recognise that it is crucially important for the children to learn skills and make links between their learning.
At West Hill we recognise the importance of all subjects across the National Curriculum. We foster strong links with Wandsworth creative arts team, the Wandsworth Music service, and Wandsworth Sports services.
We provide our children with a curriculum, which celebrates all areas of learning.
Nurture and Well-Being:
Nurture at West Hill involves listening carefully to the children and responding appropriately, focusing on building self-esteem and confidence so that all children feel valued, respected and belong to the school community.
Child well-being is at the forefront of our ethos. Our school motto: ‘Ready to learn, inspired to succeed, prepared for life’ encapsulates this.
Enriching Our Curriculum:
Our weekly assemblies recognise that the development of a child’s personal and social qualities are equally important to ensure that our children leave West Hill with the skills of empathy, compassion, resilience, honesty and respect.
We enrich learning and aim to inspire children to want to find out more by planning school trips, visitors and workshops. These trips and visits help build meaningful connections across the curriculum and set the children’s learning into real life contexts, helping them to make sense of it. Home learning projects and homework tasks also enhance our topic outcomes and achievements; children go home inspired by their learning, wanting to delve deeper and find out / do more!