NPSB Curriculum Enrichment

At Nishkam Primary School Birmingham, we pride ourselves on providing an inclusive environment where all teachers have high expectations, children experience high levels of enjoyment and are therefore able to succeed. Through our virtues-led approach to education, we develop the whole child: academically, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. We aim to nurture children’s interests and talents and celebrate their successes. We encourage children to challenge themselves and to use the virtue of courage to try new experiences.  Our curriculum extends beyond the National Curriculum and provides a wide range of enrichment experiences and opportunities both within and outside of the school day to enhance the learning for our pupils. Below are some of the ways in which we enrich the learning journey for all our pupils:

School Clubs
We have an extensive programme of after-school clubs that support the core curriculum offer, as well as those which develop specialist skills, such as languages, music and art. All our after-school clubs aim to promote children’s interests and provide a range of differing experiences, thus building on their cultural capital.  All our after-school clubs are inclusive, and provision is made where necessary to ensure all pupils are able to access their chosen club. We continuously develop our after-school offer based on the voice of our pupils and attendance numbers, ensuring clubs are relevant and of interest to pupils. Please see below this term’s after-school clubs:

 

 

Educational Visits & Residential Trips

At Nishkam Primary School Birmingham, we aim to bring excellence and enjoyment into our pupils’ education in order for them to grow a love learning and to excel. This is fostered through unique and inspiring moments. One way in which our school provides for these moments is through educational visits; they invite pupils to discover new places, new people and new experiences in different and exciting ways. 

Ofsted states: “Learning outside the classroom contributes significantly to raising standards and improving pupils personal, social and emotional development”.  Taking pupils out of their classroom setting provides them with the opportunity to see things in context, have new experiences and be inspired. As a school, we value the opportunities such visits offer for our pupils and are committed to ensuring that visits are relevant to our pupils’ learning and development. Our past and future educational visits include:

 

 

Residential Visits

We believe that a residential visit provides children with multiple benefits. They develop independence, improve confidence and self-esteem, establish strong relationships, motivate pupils and allows them to create lifelong memories.

Year 4 – Ingestre Hall: An expressive and creative arts residential visit where they can imagine, create and express themselves through various artistic channels, such as music, drama, visual art, dance, film, photography or animation.

Year 6 - The children in Year 6 have the opportunity to attend a residential trip for 4 nights at Plas Gwynant Centre in Wales this year. Its more than just a fun ‘school trip away’, residential trips for schools are a key part of the national curriculum. The diverse and high-quality educational visits we offer mean teachers can create experiences that enhance pupils’ classroom learning, adding opportunities pupils may not otherwise have, particularly in the case of schools where children have limited access to natural outdoor environments in their day-to-day learning.

 

Visitors to School
We believe that people from outside of our school setting contribute significantly to the development of our pupils both academically and personally. We have had a range of visitors within our school who have either delivered assemblies, workshops or curriculum sessions. Below is an overview of some of our school visitors:

• People working within the local community, such as police officers:
• CEO of Zero Hunger with Lungar: Whole school assemblies to raise awareness of the charity and promote ways in which we can support those in need.
• HSBC: Financial education workshop (EYFS through to Year 6)
• Severn Trent Water: Whole school assemblies on water safety
• St John’s Ambulance: Class workshops on life saving first aid skills (EYFS through to Year 6)
• Birmingham City Mission: Whole school faith assemblies on Christian stories (linked to our virtues, faith and personal development)
• The History Guy: Interactive history workshops for selected year groups to enhance their history unit, support history learning and develop historian skills.
• Coram Life Education also provide us with a visit from the Life Education Bus in the summer term. This is where children have the opportunity to visit the bus and meet Harold the giraffe, Coram Life Education’s mascot, and take part in PSHE learning in a different environment.

 

Enrichment Days & Weeks
Throughout the year, enrichment days and weeks are woven into the curriculum and school diary. These aim to extend and reinforce previous learning, as well as providing new or different experiences for all our pupils. Below are some of the enrichment days we offer:

Faith Enrichment Days – The school organises three enrichment days throughout the academic school year. Some are linked to festivals e.g. Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s birthday and some are focussed on certain virtues e.g. love, compassion, forgiveness. Pupils are also able to participate in a variety of activities in and out of school to further understand the faith or the virtue.

Art Enrichment Days – Using our virtues of creativity and resilience, the children embark on a variety of Art Enrichment experiences which provide the opportunity to apply previously learned art skills as well as developing new knowledge around an artists and art disciplines.

Please see the below Good News article on our last Art Enrichment Day https://www.nishkamschooltrust.org/npsb/news-and-events/news/art-enrichment-day

Science Week – As a school community, we take part in the national Science Week. The week comprises of science focused activities and learning which develop pupils’ subject knowledge, skills, curiosity and enjoyment within the subject.

This year, we will be extending our Science Week to include all STEM subjects. We are excited to provide this enrichment opportunity for our pupils and show how the STEM subjects interlink and work collaboratively together within our world.

 

National/International Awareness Days/Weeks
To ensure our pupils are aware of the world around them and their part within that world, we believe it is essential for them to partake in national and international awareness days and weeks. Our school takes part in a variety of awareness events, including: Anti-bullying Week, Internet Safety Day, World Food Day, Children’s Mental Health Week and UN Interfaith & Harmony Week.

 

PE & Sport Enrichment

Healthy Lifestyles – Healthy food awareness and choices, being active throughout the day. School Council campaigns.

Playground game, equipment and team games – We believe children being active  helps with not only their fitness, but their mental health and academic success. At breaktimes and lunchtimes we have a range of equipment and activities to help support our children’s development and to keep them active. At lunchtime, a Sports Coach facilitates team sports to help enrich and develop their team games knowledge and skills. We regularly update our resources and change the activities on offer to ensure a wide range of opportunities.

Sports Days – Every year, our pupils engage in competitive sports through our House Sports Days. This is a whole school event and involves every pupil collaborating and gaining points for their House.

Fitness during the Pandemic – During the pandemic lockdowns, we recognised that being active was important for our pupils to stay fit and healthy whilst they were not at school. We not only continued weekly PE lessons to develop essential skills and knowledge, but whole-school weekly fitness challenges were set to encourage pupils to be active every day.

Sports Events & Competitions – Our pupils selflessly take part in The Simply Health Great Birmingham Junior and Mini Runs. This is a great opportunity for children to not only think about their fitness and to prepare themselves physically for the event but raise money for Zero Hunger for Langar. Please see our news article about this event here: https://www.nishkamschooltrust.org/news/?pid=9&nid=1&storyid=32

As we transition out of the peak of the pandemic, we are looking to engage with external sports competitions. We look forward to reconnecting in person with other schools and celebrate a love of sports and being active.  

Nishkam (Selfless Service – faith and personal enrichment)

Cleaning Tradition – As a Trust we aim to embed a culture that helps to foster a care for the environment and self-discipline in all parts of life.  The inspiration not only comes from the Sikh Faith tradition of seva (selfless service) but also the revitalising of pupil/staff ‘Cleaning Tradition’ routine of the school environment as Japanese schools do. In Japan all parts of the school are clean and ordered, including all teaching spaces, cupboards, resources, desks, etc.   This cleaning tradition also creates an ‘every day is a new day’ atmosphere which allows for contemplation and reflection too.

Seva and our classroom rota - The rota encourages not only selfless service (seva) but also further embeds the following virtues:

•  Makes pupils feel valued with a sense of purposefulness
• Enables them to have a practical application of being helpful and kind
• Understand the importance of being accountable
• Form good habits — reliable people do what they'll say they're going to do.

 

Prayers - Prayer is a form of worship and a heartfelt way of talking to God (a loving plea) and expressing sincere gratitude and the love for God – the Almighty creator and provider. People of faith believe that worship in the form of prayer changes us. Regular loving and devoted prayer with genuine sincerity can elevate a person into a state of being that is different from their everyday consciousness (or material awareness) and a realisation of ‘Truth’ the oneness of all of creation, as an expression of Almighty God.

Our aims are:

• To give pupils the opportunity to develop their own religious spiritual identity
• To learn about serenity through prayer
• To deepen their own personal faith through prayer

 

Charitable giving - Homeless Appeal (Zero Hunger with Langar) Fundraising (The Great Birmingham Run)

Volunteering – We offer lots of opportunities for pupils to take on new responsibilities and to be involved in successfully supporting the life and work of the school. These include:

Elected representatives for our School Council, Librarians and our Class Ambassadors. Within our classes, children can volunteer to take on various responsibilities ranging from book monitors to leaders in prayer.

All our pupils have the opportunity to develop their personal skills through the above and understand how their contribution and collaboration can make a difference to others in their school community and beyond.

 

Music Enrichment
‘Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity’ (The National Curriculum). At Nishkam Primary Birmingham, we believe that children can use music to not only explore and practise the virtues of creativity and collaboration but can build on their understanding of our world – it's cultures and it’s diversity. Through music, children can develop life-long, transferable skills and knowledge.

To enrich our music curriculum, we offer a variety of opportunities to listen to music as well as partake in musical activities outside of our core music lessons, which includes opportunities to explore, develop and celebrate pupils’ musical talents and interests. Below are some examples on how we facilitate this:

After-school clubs – We provide the opportunity for pupils to access external, specialist music teachers after-school.

Nishkam Musicians – An open opportunity for pupils to share their musical talents and perform in front of an audience. Nishkam Musicians audition for this position and are given an opportunity to perform in assemblies.  

Music speaking and listening sessions – Each class has a weekly music speaking and listening session in addition to their music units. The aims of the sessions are: to increase children’s understanding and knowledge of musicians, composers, music artists, music styles, genres and periods; make links to the wider world and the use and impact of music of societies and cultures; and to build children’s singing repertoire.

Music on the playground – We celebrate our love of music not only inside our school building but out on our playground. On our rooftop playground, we have wall mounted instruments available to all pupils to access throughout their break times and lunchtimes. Instrument guides and challenges are provided to support and further challenge pupils in their musical explorations.

 

Nishkam Trust Concerts and Performances –
Nishakm Trust enjoy coming together to celebrate and showcase the talents within our school communities. These events have included a Winter Concert and our Nishkam Virtual Concert during lockdown to raise money for the NHS: https://www.nishkamschooltrust.org/page/?title=Nishkam+Virtual+Concert&pid=1812

 

Assemblies

Our assemblies promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, and help to guide our pupils on how to become well-rounded individuals and global citizens.

Faith Assemblies – Weekly faith assemblies support our Virtues, Faith and Personal Development (VFPD) curriculum. Assemblies are prepared and delivered by our class teachers or senior leaders and aim to bring our school community together in collective worship. Our aim is to ensure we are working together to equip our children with the understanding and knowledge to be well-rounded, global citizens.

Celebration Assemblies – Weekly celebration assemblies are led by our class teachers or senior leaders. The aims of these assemblies are to celebrate the successes of our pupils as a school community and to promote excellent behaviours towards learning.

Parent Assemblies – Each year, every class has the opportunity to perform in front of the school community and their parents. Each class will focus on a key calendar event (linked to our virtues) and will work with their class teacher to develop an informative and entertaining assembly. These assemblies promote our pupils’ speaking and listening development and provide the opportunity for pupils to practise the virtues of courage, collaboration and creativity.

Visitor Assemblies – Throughout the year, a variety of visitors may lead on assemblies to raise awareness or to educate. Visitors have included representatives from Birmingham City Mission, Zero Hunger with Langar and Severn Trent Water.