Our Curriculum – Creating Opportunities, Shaping Futures
At Bowhill Primary School, we believe in providing children with a rich, well-rounded education that offers opportunities to explore, question, and engage with the world. Our curriculum is designed to make learning both meaningful and fun, with each lesson carefully building on the last. This helps children deepen their understanding, retain knowledge, and grow as independent, confident learners. Our aim is to nurture curiosity, resilience, and a passion for learning, ensuring that children not only succeed academically but also develop a love of learning that stays with them for life.
Our curriculum is broad, balanced, and carefully sequenced to link learning across subjects and themes. We expect learning to have a purpose and context. Each are of learning connects to and builds on previous learning, allowing children to develop transferable knowledge and skills they can use beyond the classroom. Wherever possible, subjects within a theme are linked together to give learning greater depth and meaning. We also make full use of the city of Exeter as well as St Thomas, exploring their history, culture, and geography to enrich our lessons and provide a real-world context for children’s learning. We want our children to be proud of their community and to feel a real sense of belonging to it.
To bring learning to life, we offer a wide range of hands-on experiences, including outdoor trips, residentials to Bristol, Plymouth and South Devon as well as creative projects, and community involvement – such as our work with Devon Community Foundation through West Town Farm. These activities help children discover their interests, develop key skills, and better understand the world around them, we are strong believers in uniting communities and developing pride within them. Regular visitors and school trips allow children to apply their classroom learning in real-world settings, deepening their understanding and making learning more engaging.
Reading is at the heart of everything we do at Bowhill. Each classroom has a well-stocked, attractive book corner to encourage a love of reading. We believe that reading opens doors to new ideas, broadens children’s horizons, and builds cultural capital. In addition to this, we’ve created calm, purposeful learning environments by investing in new furniture and thoughtful classroom designs, ensuring children can focus and thrive in spaces that support their learning.
Teamwork is key to our success. We have 3 phase leads who work with our teachers who in turn collaborate closely, sharing best practices and planning lessons together to ensure consistency, clarity, and high standards across the school. Premier Sports work with us, providing dedicated sports coaches who deliver expert PE lessons alongside our teachers to provide ongoing high quality CPD. We promote physical health and well-being for all children and staff.
We also greatly value the partnership we have with parents and carers. We actively encourage their involvement in their children’s learning, providing regular opportunities for engagement through open classroom afternoons, parents’ evenings and school events – as well as daily communication through Class Dojo and Tapestry. We believe that by working together with families, we can ensure that the individual needs of every child are met as they grow and develop throughout their time at Bowhill.
By fostering curiosity, collaboration, and practical learning experiences, we help children ask questions, explore new ideas, and make meaningful connections between what they learn in school and the world around them. At Bowhill Primary School, we are passionate about ensuring children have the opportunities to discover their interests, build confidence, and shape their futures with resilience and ambition. Our goal is to ensure that every child leaves our school equipped with the skills, knowledge, and self-belief they need to succeed in the next stage of their education and beyond.