Welcome to our friendly school in the heart of the Shortlands community. Our school motto is Love School Life and we aim for all members of the Highfield community, children, parents, carers, friends, and staff, to be part of this. By working together we achieve the best outcomes for our children and are extremely proud of our achievements whether academic or those which are focused on developing key life skills.
Our broad, balanced, and rich curriculum is supported by outdoor, active, and international learning. We focus on the development of the whole child so that they are equipped for the next stage of their learning journey. We work very closely with Highfield Junior School, sharing expertise to provide the best possible education for our children.
We work to ensure that every child meets their potential through our core values Respect, Creativity, Inclusivity, Responsibility, Determination, and Confidence.
Our aims and values are at the core of everything we do. They underpin our teaching and learning and provide an environment that prepares our pupils as confident, happy citizens.
Our School Values were agreed upon by all of our stakeholders and are used, along with the British Values, in the everyday life of our school. Each half term we focus on a particular School Value.
At Highfield Infants' School, we have a broad and balanced curriculum tailored to meet the needs of individual children. We draw from a wide range of teaching resources and aim to produce confident questioning learners.
Science, Computing, History, Geography, Art, Design, and Technology, and Music are taught through the IPC topics. The IPC topics present learning for the children in a vibrant and meaningful way, that helps to make links between subject areas.
Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural (SMSC) understanding is also promoted throughout the units. So as our children develop knowledge, skills, and understanding in subject areas they are also learning about:
- Their own identity,
- Perspectives of right and wrong,
- How societies, including the UK function,
- Their responsibilities as young citizens locally and internationally.
These aspects in turn support our work in promoting both the Highfield and British values.
The IPC works hand in hand with our RE syllabus giving breadth and continuity across the whole curriculum. We aim to lay the foundations for adult life in 21st Century Britain, as well as encouraging tolerance and respect for other cultures and societies.
The International Primary Curriculum (IPC) combines all the subjects of the National Curriculum in a thematic and creative curriculum. It has a clear process of learning and specific learning goals for every subject, international-mindedness, and personal learning.
The IPC has been designed to ensure rigorous learning but also to help teachers make learning exciting, active, and meaningful. The IPC takes a global approach helping children to connect their learning to where they are living now as well as looking at the learning from the perspective of other people.
Our School Council is elected by the children to represent the views of their classmates. Each class has two representatives on the School Council and they remain as a School Councillor for half a year. The School Council meets once a month and the children discuss a range of topics affecting the school. They go back to their classes to gather more ideas and feed these back at the next meeting.
This enables our children to have input into the development of our school. The children discuss issues such as behavior, playtime, home learning. The minutes of each meeting are typed and shared with each class. Minutes of the most recent meetings are included below.
Technology is changing the world around us and offers our children limitless possibilities. As our children's first educators we want to work in partnership with our parents and carers to teach the children how to use new technologies safely and responsibly both at school and at home.
