Violin Performances
Our Pupils had the opportunity to learn the Violin and are delighted to share this performance:
How we build Cultural Capital for our children – and why it helps
Our pioneering Hinterland programme is providing cultural capital for Culloden’s pupils so they can enjoy a richer life experience and improve their learning.
Cultural capital has existed as a phrase and a concept for decades, but was introduced by Ofsted into its framework in September 2019. They describe it as “the knowledge and cultural capital children need to succeed in life.” which dovetails smoothly with work we have been doing in this area for years.
The amount of cultural capital a child has can impact how much they get from their lessons at school. Due to differing circumstances and backgrounds, children inevitably come to the classroom with a range of different life experiences. For instance, some pupils may have been to the seaside, while others will never have visited the coast. If then, in an English lesson, the class reads a story set by the sea such as The Lighthouse Keeper’s Cat, everyone can understand it and answer questions on it to some extent, but the children who have actually been to the coast are able to relate far more readily and enjoy a richer experience than those who haven’t.
We are committed to levelling this playing field, ensuring all pupils have access to high quality experiences. We do this through Paradigm’s Hinterland programme, which it has designed not only to increase cultural capital in its pupils, but academic capital (the knowledge which supports new learning) and character capital (the knowledge which lets you engage with the world).
It’s a curriculum of thought-through systematic experiences which we expect every child from Early Years to the end of Y11 to benefit from. These include going to the seaside, the zoo, having a picnic, residential trips, museum trips, visiting backstage at a theatre, taking part in plays and other activities which prove beneficial to children’s learning. The activity is then brought back to the classroom and the teachers spend a lot of time unpacking and exploring it to ensure maximum value is drawn out of every experience. By running the Hinterland programme we, and the other Paradigm schools, are working hard to ensure no child is disadvantaged in their education. In this way, we are able to broaden children’s life experiences and help prepare them for future study, employment and, most importantly, leading a fulfilling life.
Culloden Primary Academy and The Aberfeldy Masterplan
As many of you are aware potential changes to the location of our school have been included for consultation in proposals for The Aberfeldy Masterplan by Poplar HARCA and Ecoworld. No plans to move have been agreed currently and it will only be considered if it were to significantly improve our current buildings or facilities. Full details of the consultation can be found here: https://www.poplarharca.co.uk/new-homes-regeneration/development-projects/project/aberfeldy-west/
