Our Hindley J&I Experiences Promise
It is important that we get a good balance of trips, experiences and extra-curricular activities to enhance our curriculum at school and to contextualise the children’s learning. These will be instrumental in developing our children’s aspirations, empathy and knowledge and understanding of the world. Ultimately, helping to develop what is sometimes referred to as ‘cultural capital’.
The term ‘cultural capital’, which is defined as: “the essential knowledge that children need to be educated citizens”. Cultural capital is the essential knowledge that children need to prepare them for their future success.
Offering a broad and balanced variety of trips, visitors, experiences and extra-curricular activities has many obvious benefits to the all-round development of our children: helps to reinforce learning; encourages children to learn and inspires children to learn more; provides cultural experiences and allows for life-long memories to be made with friends.
At Hindley Junior and Infant School, we have developed our bespoke ‘Hindley J&I Experience Promise’. We promise that every single child at school will the opportunity to experience very specific things outlined in our checklist. During their time at school, every child will be given the following opportunities:
- watch and appreciate professional theatre performances
- participate in a variety of extra-curricular clubs regularly after school
- take on leadership roles within school such as school councillor, play leaders, captain school teams, sports day leaders, gardening club leaders, tuck shop leaders
- visit places of worship for the main religions in the UK
- meet a variety of religious leaders and people of different faiths
- represent the school in inter school competitions, sporting and non-sporting
- contribute positively to the local community (e.g. visiting local care homes and retirement villages, partaking in community litter picks, participating in community remembrance services and religious services and taking part in local competitions)
- grow and care for a plant/tree from a seed
- visit the seaside/beach
- visit a national park such as The Lake District
- taste food grown from a seed in the school garden
- go on a train
- visit a city
- take part in intra school competitions
- sail on a boat
- go on a residential trip
- participate in outdoor adventurous activities
- observe life cycles up close (chickens, ducks, frogs, butterflies)
- watch (and maybe join in with) a live orchestra
- visit museums and art galleries
- meet a range of inspirational people in person to discuss future aspirations, broaden horizons and put learning into context of employment (e.g. visitors linked to learning in class, Y6 careers week, inspirational people visits)
- eat in a restaurant (ordering own food from a waiter)
- interact with a variety of live animals ( e.g. reptile/farm visits, visiting a zoo and farm)
- watch live professional sporting events
- opportunity to perform to an audience
- learn to play an instrument and read music
All classes take advantage of the local area and link it to learning when they can throughout the year e.g. nature walks, looking at local buildings from different eras in history, inviting local experts into school linked to learning, visit local churches, carrying out local geography field work, applying learnt geography skills such as navigating/using maps etc.
Individual classes go on a variety of trips each year, and whole school or key stage trips/experiences are made available to all children at different times throughout the year e.g. whole school carol concerts in church, theatre and orchestra shows, watching live sporting events (visits to Old Trafford and DW Stadium), key stage trip to watch orchestra and key stage trips to the beach etc.