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Wider Curriculum

Building Cultural Capital

Cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviours, and skills that a child can draw upon and which demonstrates their cultural awareness, knowledge and competence; it is one of the key ingredients a pupil will draw upon to be successful in society, their career and the world of work.

Cultural capital gives power. It helps children achieve goals, become successful, and rise up the social ladder without necessarily having wealth or financial capital. Cultural capital is having assets that give children the desire to aspire and achieve social mobility whatever their starting point.

Gradually widening children’s experiences as they progress through school is an important step in providing rich and engaging learning across the curriculum. We plan carefully for children to have progressively richer experiences in pre-school and beyond. These include trips to the local park, shops and visits to places of worship, museums, sports venues just to name a few. 

At Maple Tree, our curriculum is designed to instil high aspirations in all of our children and to encourage them to become resilient, life long learners who embrace challenges and continue to grow. Our children will be inspired to follow whichever path they choose whilst being well-rounded, conscientious citizens of our community as well as understanding how they can be global citizens. Our values, understanding of SMSC and British Values enrich and underpin our curriculum to ensure Maple Tree pupils are prepared and equipped to succeed.

Opportunities to develop cultural capital at Maple Tree:

  • workshops and local visits such as History off the Page days and visits to Bletchley Park
  • clubs such as sports-based, construction, chess, music etc
  • supporting charities (The Need Project) and participation in fundraising events such as Comic Relief and Children in Need
  • external instrumental lessons such as rocksteady, violin lessons
  • participation in local sports events
  • Values assemblies
  • celebration of events with the whole school community such as Harvest, Christmas and Easter assemblies, World Book Day
  • enabling all with targeted support, 1:1 reading, sunshine circles etc
  • class monitors and pupil representatives
  • Wow walls to celebrate achievements across the school