SMSC stands for Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural education and is part of the National Curriculum.

At Alwoodley Primary School, our aim is to inspire all our pupils to love learning and to be socially and morally responsible citizens of the world. Our purpose is to nurture the growth of the whole child - academically, socially and emotionally. Good relationships are at the heart of our school which is reflected in our motto: learning together, growing stronger.

How SMSC is taught and experienced at Alwoodley Primary School

SMSC education is as much an approach as it is discrete experiences. SMSC weaves through all we do – how we work in teams, discuss and debate, encourage reflection, consider ethical impact, explore the wonders of the world and give our pupils a voice.

Our curriculum is an important part of our SMSC (including values and character work) education as we have designed it with SMSC in mind. Our Alwoodley Passport has been developed by stakeholders and is a set of essential experiences that develop our pupils SMSC over their seven years with us. They are specific to the needs of our curriculum and context.

Cultural Capital

The Cultural Learning Alliance states that cultural capital "is characterised by the experience and skill to be able to deploy the appropriate knowledge in any given situation: a job interview, a conversation with a neighbour, building a work network and so on." It is often assumed to be about providing children with cultural experiences of 'high art' such as theatre, art and literature, but cultural capital can refer to much more including:

• technical cultural capital – e.g. IT
• emotional cultural capital - such as empathy and sympathy
• embodied cultural capital – e.g. language, expressions, mannerisms;
• national cultural capital - working on an assumption of an existence of traditions, the lack of which can act as a disadvantage

Our curriculum, including the Alwoodley Passport, is broad and wide-reaching. It is a knowledge rich curriculum, designed to introduce pupils to the best that has been thought and said as well as the knowledge and skills they will need for life today such as emotional literacy and an appreciation for diversity and equality.

Beyond lessons, our pupils SMSC education extends to:

• School assemblies
• Visits to different places of worship and visits to school by different representatives of religions and belief-systems
• Educational visits to complement teaching and learning in school
• Residential experiences for years 5&6
• Celebrations with our community
• Charitable projects - we support local, national and global projects led by School Council
• Sports competitions against local schools
• Whole school theatre visits

Alwoodley Passport -The National Curriculum is just the starting point for our ‘Curriculum That Matters’ – our children have so many more experiences and we wanted to show this.  By the time children leave us they will have experienced so much that they can look at and discuss.  All children who leave us, if they have been with us since Reception, will be able to tick off all of the items on our SMSC passport.

If you have any questions regarding the curriculum we teach please contact the school directly.