Whole School Curriculum Overview

In order to develop healthy, happy, confident children who are ready and open to learning, the City of Birmingham School has adopted The Thrive Approach.

Thrive is an approach to working with all children. It is based on neurological evidence which addresses brain development so that all children learn to regulate their emotional responses, develop resilience and manage disappointment and frustration.

Thrive provides a way of understanding and addressing the emotional and social development of all children. It helps us to check a child’s readiness to learn, to identify any gaps and then plan to meet them. Through doing so, we will be able to make sure that all of our pupils have what they need to make the best possible progress in their learning.

For more information, please look at the Thrive website or contact our Thrive Lead, Caroline Willis, at the following email address: carolinewillis@cobschool.com

Swimming

Swimming is great fun and helps children to stay fit and healthy. But swimming at school also teaches children vital skills on how to stay safe in and around water. We want every child to be a confident swimmer by the time they leave us.

Bike riding and achieving bike ability

Bikeability is a cycle training programme that teaches children practical skills and gives them the understanding and expertise they need to ride their bikes on the road

Forest Skills

Forest School is an inspirational process that offers all learners regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands-on learning experiences in a woodland or natural environment with trees.

At City of Birmingham School, we have a full-time careers advisor, Vincent Gordon, who works with all of our pupils across the school. As well as planning a careers curriculum across the school, including work experience opportunities and careers information days, our careers advisor offers personal guidance to all pupils – this includes working with individual pupils in years 10 and 11 to help them with applying for appropriate post 16 provision.

For more information, or if you have any queries about careers education, please contact Shelley Hughes at the following email address: shelleyhughes@cobschool.com

Adult life requires a range of skills in order for people to flourish, both in the workplace and in their daily lives, from the confidence and motivation to seek challenges and complete tasks to the interpersonal skills that aid teamwork and other social interactions. These essential life skills are crucial to people achieving their potential, and as such, we offer a life skills and character education programme to our Key Stage 3 and 4 pupils.

 This offer includes, but is not limited t,o learning about the following:

• Respect
• Financial skills
• Cooking
• Motivation
• Communication
• Leadership
• Organisation
• Resilience
• Initiative

Chess is a universal game, knowing no boundaries of age, gender, faith, ethnicity or disability.  It promotes key intellectual skills such as problem solving, logical thinking, pattern recognition and concentration. Playing chess also fosters intellectual character. Its reputation boosts self-esteem and gives children the ability to cope with adversity, which helps pupils grow into rounded and employable individuals. It does this by teaching children how to lose and how to win gracefully, to think ahead and foresee the consequences of their actions. Every single pupil has access to chess lessons on a rotational basis each half term.

In our primary centres we offer pupils the opportunity to work with therapy dogs. Research into the effectiveness of therapy dogs in schools indicates that benefits include:

• Cognitive – companionship with a dog stimulates memory, problem-solving and game-playing
• Social – a dog provides a positive mutual topic for discussion, encourages responsibility, wellbeing and focused interaction with others
• Emotional – a school dog improves self-esteem, acceptance from others and lifts mood, often provoking laughter and fun. Dogs can also teach compassion and respect for other living things as well as relieving anxiety.
• Physical – interaction with a furry friend reduces blood pressure, provides tactile stimulation, assists with pain management, gives motivation to move, walk and stimulates the senses
• Environmental – a dog in a school increases the sense of a family environment, with all of the above benefits continuing long after the school day is over.
• Reading – reading to dogs has been proven to help children develop literacy skills and build confidence, through both the calming effect the dog’s presence has on children as well as the fact that a dog will listen to children read without being judgemental or critical. This comforting environment helps to nurture children’s enthusiasm for reading and provides them with the confidence to read aloud.

The dogs used will be highly trained therapy dogs and used to working with children. However, we will always first seek parental consent for children spending time with the dogs.

MAC Makes Music is an award-winning programme providing innovative music-making opportunities for children and young people with limited access to music provision. We work with Families, Pupil Referral Units, Charities, Primary Schools, Children’s Services, Centres for Newly Arrived Children and Young People, Resource Bases/Focus Provisions and Special Schools to influence sustained music-making activity for those with limited access to music provision.

Our passion is to offer young people high-quality music-making experiences led by a team of highly experienced musicians. The young person’s voice and creativity are at the heart of a diverse music offer in new music technology, songwriting, band development, singing and music production.

Our KS4 pupils have access to the Rugby Works programme which is an intensive, long-term skills development programme based on the values of rugby. Rugby players and coaches come into our Kings centre on a weekly basis and work with pupils through mentoring, classroom based support and rugby to help them to get into sustained education, employment or training upon finishing their GCSEs.

Fit4Life

The benefits of physical activity for children include:

• Building confidence and improving social skills
• Develops coordination
• Enhances concentration
• Makes children feel good and elevates their mood
• Inspires positivity and encourages tolerance
• Helps to relieve stress and maintain mental and emotional wellbeing
• Improves sleep and energy levels
• Reduces the risk of morbidity and mortality from chronic non-communicable diseases
• Improves overall health and fitness and helps children maintain a healthy weight to prevent childhood obesity

Consequently, we place high value on physical education for our pupils. Alongside PE lessons, we have teamed up with Dr. Zoe Williams and the Fit4Life team. They are working with some of our secondary aged pupils to educate them about the importance of life long fitness and, using physical activity as a vehicle for change, aim to improve the health and well-being and confidence of our pupils.  Through 1:1 work and group sessions, the Fit4Life team provide exciting sporting opportunities, offer positive role models and mentors and raise the life aspirations of our pupils