Curriculum Objectives: Developing Pupils’ Cultural Capital

What is cultural capital?

Every child and family who joins the school will have their own knowledge and experiences that will link to their culture and wider family. This might include languages, beliefs, traditions, cultural and family heritage, interests, travel and work.

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 in society, their career and the world of work and within their family life.

Cultural capital promotes social mobility and success in society.

Cultural capital gives a pupil power. It helps them 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.

What does cultural capital mean at John Burns Primary School?

At John Burns Primary, we define cultural capital as the knowledge needed to fully appreciate and participate in all aspects of life. For pupils to aspire and be successful academically and in the wider areas of their lives, they need to be given rich and sustained opportunities to develop their cultural capital.

We believe that exposure, not only to situations in which the children might not have previous experiences of, is of paramount importance to their ongoing successes.

Gradually widening children’s experiences as they progress through our school is an important step in providing rich and engaging learning across the curriculum in order to ensure that children become productive members of society.

Each subject taught within the school day makes its own contribution to pupils’ cultural capital development.