Gaborone Botswana

Curriculum Introduction

We are a unique school in a unique situation and as such we have created a curriculum which is relevant to our pupils. This provides them with the skills and knowledge to enable them to reach their full potential.

The curriculum is linked to the UK National Curriculum with input from other countries including Botswana, South Africa and New Zealand.

The Thornhill Curriculum is balanced, broadly based and aims to:

provide opportunities for all pupils to learn and to achieve

promote pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and prepare all pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life.

These two aims are interdependent and reinforce each other. The personal development of pupils plays a significant part in their ability to learn and to achieve.

The curriculum provides all pupils with opportunities to acquire, develop, practise, apply and extend their skills in a range of contexts. These skills are also relevant to life and learning outside and beyond the school.

Skills include:

the key skills of communication (including literacy),

application of number,

information communication technology,

working with others,

improving own learning and performance and problem solving

thinking skills (including information processing, reasoning, enquiry, creative thinking and evaluation).

In Reception, Standard 1 and Standard 2 the curriculum is essentially based around numeracy and literacy with the opportunity for pupils to be introduced to motivating, stimulating and interesting work from elsewhere in the curriculum. Pupils learn through broad-based topics. Learning outcomes are taken from different subject areas but not identified as subject-based to the children.

In Standards 3 and 4 numeracy and literacy are consolidated and applied in other contexts. The children begin to develop knowledge, skills and understanding as defined in individual subjects. A theme is chosen but learning outcomes are organised and presented to the children in a more subject-based way.

In Standards 5, 6 and 7 pupils extend subject-specific knowledge, skills and understanding through an interesting range of contexts. Separate science, history and geography lessons are taught, which may or may not share a common theme.

Thornhill Primary School Gaborone Botswana Thornhill Primary School Gaborone Botswana Thornhill Primary School Gaborone Botswana Thornhill Primary School Gaborone Botswana Thornhill Primary School Gaborone Botswana Thornhill Primary School Gaborone Botswana Thornhill Primary School Gaborone Botswana Thornhill Primary School Gaborone Botswana