Learning at Dunalley is a progressive journey with common approaches and themes threaded from the Early Years through to the end of Key Stage 2. Our curriculum provides our pupils with the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. We aim to give them everything they need for what comes next in their learning and development. This is achieved through our curriculum and a range of experiences and opportunities to help them progress and achieve success.

During our Early Years, children start their learning in a play-based, child-led, active environment. After the children enter year 1, we balance success in English, mathematics and science within a broad and enriched curriculum that allows our children plenty of opportunities to explore art and design, design and technology, computing, music, history, geography, RE, physical education and French at Key Stage 2. 

Enhancements to our curriculum are provided through a variety of different experiences and opportunities to enable children to further develop their learning, make progress, build their cultural capital and achieve success within the EYFS educational programmes and the Key Stage 1 and 2 curriculum. 

We use our school and local environment to provide opportunities to enhance our curriculum such as using our outdoor spaces for science learning, the local park for geography fieldwork, or local venues such as the Holst Museum for history learning as well as taking advantage of Cheltenham’s Literature and Science Festivals. 

We also actively encourage our children to discuss topical news items through ‘Picture News’ - a resource which presents a topical issue to discuss each week both at school and at home. These sessions are also used to highlight and foster British values. 

Our ’50 things to do before you leave Dunalley’ initiative allows children to participate in a range of physical and creative activities and experiences to develop pupils’ well-being as well as experiencing the great outdoors by taking learning outside. 

Developing an appreciation for our environment, and understanding the impact we can have on it, is also an important area of our children’s learning. We aim to develop this using our fabulous outdoor areas, encouraging re-using, re-cycling and reducing waste and having the environment as a theme that runs through many of our subject areas, from the literature we read in English, to re-using items to create pieces of art. 

Throughout our year we hold a range of themed weeks or days to support learning such as our Health Week, Dunalley Literature Festival and Geography Day as well as national events such as World Book Day. 

Commando Joe's, a programme based on developing RESPECT (resilience, empathy, self-aware, positivity, excellence, communication and teamwork), is undertaken within our physical education programme. This programme provides children from Year 1 to Year 6 with important life-skills, through collaborative, active challenges and compliments our PSHE curriculum and positive behaviour policy.

We value the range of extra-curricular opportunities we offer to all pupils as this enables them to pursue and develop their interests beyond the curriculum. Thanks to the staff and external specialists, we are able to offer a diverse range of opportunities such as sporting activities, art and craft, computing and music.

Our children’s learning is enhanced through a range of visits and visitors. These provide opportunities for all children to gain experiences to support their learning in class. These vary from history visits to places such as the Steam Railway Museum in Swindon to learn about World War 2, to Nature in Art to experience art workshops or visitors in school to support learning in science.

Our Year 6 children benefit from a week of outdoor and adventurous activities on their residential visit during the Autumn term - a memorable highlight of their time at Dunalley. This allows them to develop, amongst other things, perseverance, resilience and teamwork by undertaking a range of challenging activities such as caving, rock climbing and gorge walking. This experience helps them to prepare for their final year at primary school and the subsequent transition to secondary education.