What is Cultural Capital?

Cultural capital is what pupils acquire alongside traditional academic knowledge. The concept relates back to the social theory of French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu. Cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviours, and skills that a pupil 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 beyond school life.

What Ofsted Says About Cultural Capital:

“It is the essential knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens, introducing them to the best that has been thought and said, and helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.” (Ofsted School Inspection Handbook, 2019)

What Does Cultural Capital Mean at Fellgate Primary School?

Art and Design: Art and Design offers cultural enrichment through cultural links when learning about artists and artwork from around the world and through opportunities to visit art galleries and take part in workshops. Art and Design enhances children’s aspirations and ambitions, develops communication and team working skills, strengthens creativity and builds confidence. At Fellgate we encourage everyone to use their own intuition to imagine, explore and use creativity and everyone is given the opportunity to flourish; we take part in regional and national competitions and fundraising projects in school to allow everyone’s art work to be celebrated.

Music: Within music lessons children are given opportunities to learn about composers in different parts of the world with different backgrounds and experiences. They discover how music can be influenced by others and the different instruments used within a piece of music.

History: Within history lessons children are given opportunities to learn about inspiring and significant people from different cultures and time periods. Resources used when teaching history are accurate and compelling. A clear and varied vocabulary encourage children to take part in group and paired discussions and feel confident to question and encourage debate amongst others.

Geography: The teaching of geography provides children with the cultural capital that they will need to succeed in their lives beyond primary education. We value educational visits, fieldwork and discussions of current events as an integral part of the geography curriculum to enable children to gain a wider context to their unit of study and become engaged with the world around them at a local, national and international level.

PSHE: Cultural capital is at the heart of all our PSHE lessons at Fellgate, helping our children navigate through the ever changing world around them. Citizenship at school, community and global levels are a vital part of our PSHE lessons, providing knowledge and skill development for all children. PSHE at Fellgate allows children to understand how ALL people live, through case studies and first hand experiences. Children are encouraged to debate, investigate, present and problem-solve by conversing using extensive vocabulary. This will allow them to be able to mix and talk to others, socialise in diverse groups and present themselves well – wherever and whoever they encounter. We use high quality resources to ensure all children have equal opportunities and get off to the best start, to successfully navigate a fulfilling and exciting life.

Computing: We provide weekly, engaging computing lesson for each child in which we include a range of experiences to develop their technological skills in order to prepare them for the real world. A variety of opportunities are provided to enable children to explore, experience and explain the wide variety of technology in the world in order for them to become informed and thoughtful members of the digital community.

Our cultural capital offer includes:

– Digital leaders.
– Computing after school club. 
– A progressive vocabulary overview within each knowledge organiser.
– Encouraging curiosity and enthusiasm for learning about different technologies.
– Learning about pioneers within the field of technology.
– Enriching the curriculum through visits and online quizzes with the ICT in schools team at The Word, celebrating internet safety week and inviting visitors to deliver assemblies, like the ‘Be Internet Legends’ team.

French: Through our teaching of MFL, we provide children with knowledge and experience of people from other backgrounds and cultures. It enables them to gain a greater understanding of the wider world through high quality experiences and teaching. We aim to enrich the lives of all children through what we teach and the experiences we provide.

Science: We enhance children’s experiences and learning by utilising different opportunities in our science curriculum around school and within our wider community. We provide engaging science lessons weekly whilst teaching the National Curriculum topics to develop their working scientifically skills. We encourage children to use the correct vocabulary within their science learning and various experiences are planned to develop their skills to prepare them for the real world. We visit our local community or wider community to see what is happening around us, with adults modelling and encouraging the right social, language and behavioural skills. Through assemblies, class and whole school projects we demonstrate and encourage our school values and responsibilities.

SMSC: SMSC offers cultural enrichment by teaching our pupils about the wide range of cultural influences that have shaped their heritage. They explore and celebrate diversity, learning from people from different groups and developing their understanding and respect. They are encouraged to participate in and respond to a range of artistic, musical, sporting, mathematical, technological, scientific and cultural opportunities.

RE: Religious Education fosters cultural capital by: 

– Allowing pupils to see beyond their own cultural experiences.
– Encouraging openness in sharing cultural experiences. 
– Encouraging curiosity and enthusiasm for learning about culture and cultures
– Enriching the curriculum through encounters with a range of people.
Our RE curriculum is designed to equip children with the knowledge and cultural capital to succeed in life. It provides them with essential knowledge about world religions and different communities so that they are well-informed citizens ready for the real world. Our curriculum also covers a range of topics that link to religious and non-religious views that allow children to broaden their learning about different communities beyond their own. We hold an annual Interfaith Week which promotes and celebrates diversity.

Our RE curriculum also provides children with plenty of opportunities to develop their critical and reflective thinking which will support them in discovering their own journey of purpose and meaning in the future. 

PE: At Fellgate Primary School we have a strong and resilient PE provision for our pupils. We encourage and promote that our pupils are active and participate in at least 30 minutes of exercise each day and that they understand the benefit of this.

We ensure that our pupils have a secure understanding that we live in a society where both men and women can play mixed sports (which we actively promote with our mixed school teams). We ensure they are tolerant of different faiths and beliefs that contribute to team competitions locally, nationally and internationally.

Our school curriculum promotes the following areas;

Within Athletics, Invasion Games, Fielding and Striking…

  • Our pupils will learn a variety of skills. They will be able to understand the mutual respect needed to compete in a sporting competition.
  • This will be evident through the way they conduct themselves when they play or compete. They will be tolerant of the different faiths and beliefs that contribute to team competitions locally, nationally and internationally.
  • Our pupils understand that they are to be compliant with the rules of a game and that we live in a democratic society where both men and women can play mixed sports.

Within Dance…

  • Our pupils demonstrate knowledge of the history of dance, and its cultural impact on the world.
  • They are able to reflect on different styles of dance, influenced by different cultures and both national and international histories.
  • Our pupils demonstrate an awareness of socio-economic influences in different dance histories, such as hip-hop, ballet and folk and begin to compare and contrast the different styles.

Design and Technology: At Fellgate we provide children with a varied and broad curriculum which prepares them for the future. Children are provided with learning opportunities and experiences that allow them to research products, achieve goals and become successful. To support children’s, understanding, knowledge and skills they are given access to a wide range of tools and resources to support them in creating purposeful products. Our curriculum supports cultural capital with the teaching of Britain’s contemporary design practices and design heritage, as well as a knowledge of international design practices. In our DT lessons children are given examples of influential inventors and inventions from different time periods to support and develop learning.