Curriculum Intent Statement

Harmony – Learning Through Nature

The world is a wonderfully magical place.

Damers First School intends to enable our children to develop a close understanding of the magical world around them and their role within it. 

We have dedicated time to continuously evaluate and research the characteristics and qualities that make our curriculum successful and fit for purpose in the current global climate.

We have been driven to further develop and redesign our curriculum so that it is a curriculum where children can connect their learning to the wider world and have a more holistic view of how the world works and their roles within it. Children globally deserve a healthier and sustainable future so we focus on the same issues that are relevant and connect children all around the world. We want to enable our children to understand and learn connections, relationships, actions and consequences in childhood so that they can contribute and have an impact now and in the future. 

Damers has recently embarked upon a journey to use Nature’s principles of Harmony to bring together skills and knowledge from different areas of learning. Our children will have the opportunity to question and research and gain knowledge to be able to seek resolutions to the challenges they face.

HRH Prince of Wales’s book, Harmony: A New Way of Looking at the World tells us that in the world of nature everything is connected and how the great traditions, cultures and religions have always understood this need to live in harmony. We are using these principles of nature to teach us how to ensure our children grow and are educated in a school community with well-being, balance and sustainability at its heart. 

The principles that exist in the natural world can guide us in the way we live, individually and collectively.

In the natural world everything works together in a state of oneness. There is no separation or division between one element or another, and this is what enables it to work so well. We believe this joined up approach echoes how our children learn together.

There are three important aspects that shape the approach to learning at Damers First School. 

Firstly, the school aims to develop in children a better understanding of how Nature’s principles can inform and inspire the way we live and work. Secondly, by integrating principles of Harmony into the curriculum, the school hopes to create a learning journey that is purposeful and leads to meaningful outcomes. Thirdly, children are given opportunities to design and plan projects that work towards achieving a healthier, more sustainable future.

By providing a curriculum that so clearly reflects the issues our children are passionate and care so deeply about we aim to inspire, motivate and empower them to make a difference to our world and take on the challenges threatening their future wellbeing.

Our curriculum encourages children through ‘enquiries of learning’ to explore the impact of the choices we make and actions we take have at a local and global level. We wish to offer our children opportunities to be able to meaningfully engage in the issues of our time and start to realise their role in finding solutions to the challenges we face. We hope that enquiry increases the children’s engagement in their learning through questioning and the search for truth. 

If our curriculum inspires children to want to learn more and to develop a real love of learning in what they do, to observe closely, reflect and question, feel at one in the world in which they live then we have a curriculum we should be proud of. 

If our curriculum inspires us as educators to ’find the learner within every child’, then we have a curriculum we should be proud of.