JESS Jumeirah provides education for children aged 3-11 years. There is a strong emphasis on multi-sensory, cross-curricular learning throughout the school, with a clear focus on skills and attitudes in the development of life-long learning.

Children entering JESS in Foundation One begin a 2-year programme following the Early Years Foundation Stage, a UK Early Years curriculum based on a practical, hands-on approach. Children are guided through 6 areas of learning, namely:

• Personal, social and emotional development 
• Communication, language and literacy 
• Problem-solving, reasoning and numeracy 
• Knowledge and understanding of the world 
• Physical development 
• Creative development

On entry into Year One children commence Key Stage One of the UK National Curriculum.  This is also a 2-year programme leading to Key Stage Two when the children are in Years 3-6.

The National Curriculum subjects are divided into core subjects: language, mathematics and science and foundation subjects: history, geography, art, design technology, music, physical education.

In addition, our pupils learn Arabic from Year one and French from Year Five. ICT is an integral part of the curriculum on offer at JESS and is used across all subject areas. It is also taught as a discreet subject by our ICT specialist in our purpose built ICT suite.

The Learning Support department within our school responds to the individual needs of particular children, offering support as well as extension for children who require extra input.

At JESS children are supported in their development as active learners.  They are involved in target setting and evaluation of their own success.  Self and peer evaluation skills developed systematically from an early age to enable children to develop critical thinking skills.  Staff are trained in Brain Gym – a system whereby children are given regular breaks to engage in a series of exercises that encourage left and right sides of the brain to function at equally optimum levels. 

As children all learn in different ways, teaching planned with learning styles is a key factor; visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners are all catered for within lessons, just as all levels are extended or supported as necessary through a thorough implementation of differentiation across all areas of the curriculum.

Learning and Teaching

At JESS we firmly believe in the concept of lifelong learning, enabling each child to achieve his/her potential.  Learning should be a rewarding fulfilling and enjoyable experience equipping the pupils with the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to make informed choices about important things in their lives.  We conduct all our learning and teaching in an atmosphere of trust and respect for all, responding professionally and sensitively to the needs of all our pupils.

Strategies employed emphasise the use of first hand experience, acknowledge different learning styles, actively engage the children in the learning process and respond to creating optimum conditions for learning by using “Brain gym” on a regular basis.

Assessment

Assessment is an ongoing process and a feature of daily school life. It involves both pupils and teachers, it informs future planning through target setting and allows for the celebration of effort and achievement. 

Standardised assessment is a feature of practice and the National Curriculum Standard Assessment tests are used from Year Two to Year Six.  These standardised assessment tests cover the core curriculum areas of English, mathematics, and in Year Six, science.  Teacher assessment sits alongside the tasks/tests to formulate a national curriculum level in each of these areas.  These levels are identified on the end of year school report.