The Griffin Schools Trust (GST) is a family of primary and secondary schools in the Midlands and the South East of England. We are committed to providing an outstanding education for all students, predicated on breadth and excellence.

All GST schools provide a rich programme of free extra-curricular activities, create an involving and stimulating physical environment and build a staff team of interesting people who are motivated to advance their own knowledge and skills as well as their pupils’ achievement.

GST schools do not teach young people to know their place, but rather to discover their talents and passions and to take their places in society, making a difference through leadership and service wherever their futures may take them.

Curriculum at Riverley

The curriculum at Riverley is designed to meet and extend beyond
the requirements of the National Curriculum. Our curriculum has suitable depth and breadth, is sequenced to build on prior learning and gives children the opportunities to apply their knowledge and skills. It is rooted in the solid consensus that every individual at Riverley is determined to provide children with the tools required to take advantage of opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life – powerfully overcoming any social disadvantage.

We teach using a topic-based approach but also ensure that we give sufficient focus to each subject discipline. The high-quality curriculum that we offer has been carefully crafted to give consideration to the sequence of content necessary for children to make exceptional progress. For example, we provide children with the knowledge they need for subsequent learning through planned vocabulary development and provide pupils with opportunities to
enhance their critical thinking skills by asking thought-provoking ‘big- thinking’ questions.

Our curriculum reflects our local context and needs and as a whole school, we have implemented Learning in the Deep (modelled on the characteristics of effective learning).
Through this approach, we ensure our children develop their ability to remain resilient in the face of challenge and display characteristics of curious, motivated, self-reflective life-long learners. Children display characteristics of an ‘I know Octopus’ when communicating prior knowledge and skills and characteristics of a ‘Slinky-Linky Sea-Snake’ when making links between concepts developing their long-term memory. ‘Learning in the Deep’ also develops children both personally and pastorally.

Our children evaluate their learning behaviours in terms of their goals which enhances their self-satisfaction and motivation as they continue to improve their methods of learning – leading them to them being able to know more, do more, and remember more.

Subject leaders have created detailed, long and medium terms for every subject area. In this way, our curriculum intent is embedded securely and consistently across our school. Our teachers have a firm and common understanding of our curriculum and what it means for their practice. Across all parts of the school, series of lessons contribute well to delivering our curriculum intent and creative work given to pupils is carefully planned to provide learning experiences in engaging, cross-curricular innovative and inspiring ways. As a result, our children love to learn and produce work of an exceptional quality and are well prepared for the next stage of their education.