What is a Cultural capital?

Cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviours, and skills that a child 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.

Cultural capital gives power. It helps children 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.

The National Curriculum states: ‘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.’

Research shows that when children and families’ cultures are valued, both the child’s experience of learning and progress can benefit (Husain et al., 2018, p. 4 and Gazzard, E. 2018 in Chalmers, H. and Crisfield, E. 2019)

Our Cultural Capital

At Our Lady of Lourdes, our curriculum is designed to instil high aspirations in all of our children and to encourage them to become resilient, life-long learners who embrace challenges and continue to grow and develop their cultural capital. Our children will be inspired to follow whichever path they choose whilst being well-rounded, conscientious global citizens. Our Christian values underpin our curriculum to ensure our children are prepared and equipped to succeed in their futures in an ever-changing world.

Within our school we strive to give the children a variety of opportunities to enrich their cultural capital:

Extra – Curricular Clubs and Children’s University

We run a wide variety of extra-curricular clubs throughout the year. For further information please visit https://www.ololprimary.org.uk/extra-curricular-clubs/ . We are also part of Children’s University which again aims to broaden the range of children’s experiences. https://www.ololprimary.org.uk/childrens-university/

Musical opportunities

In Year 4, all children are given the opportunity to learn to play the Djembe drum through the Wider Ops programme. In Years 5 and 6, children can continue to develop their skills through musical tuition. Please see  https://www.ololprimary.org.uk/music/ for further details.

Visits

We are lucky to have a number of visitors who come in to school who give the children a wide breadth of experiences. Visits have included:

• Assemblies and workshops with poet, Matt Goodfellow.
• Assemblies and coaching opportunities with World Champion Squash player, Laura Massaro.
• Visitors who have spoke to Year 6 about their first-hand experience as a child in WW2 and about the Holocaust.
• Viking and Stone age workshops.
• Sefton – Healthy Habits workshop.
• Southport Lifeboat visit.

Plus, many more. Please visit each classes page to see the wonderful experiences that happen within school.

Trip - Experiences

We recognise that learning doesn’t just take place within the classroom. Across the school children are given the opportunity to take part in some fantastic trips to enrich their learning and cultural capital. A sample of which include:

• Year 6: residential trip to RobinWood adventure centre.
• Year 5: residential to London including a visit to a West End show.
• Year 4: residential to the Anderton Centre activity centre.
• Year 3: Liverpool Museum visit to the Egyptian exhibit.
• Year 2: visit to Lytham St Annes RNLI station
• Year 1: local farm trip.
• EYFS: local dairy visit.
• ASD Provision: regular community access to parks, shops, libraries etc.

Again, please visit each classes page to see the full range of experiences on offer.

Community

Our parents and local community play a big part in developing our children’s cultural capital. We have strong links with our parish and children throughout the school regularly visit church. We support local charities such as Queenscourt Hospice and take part in events such as the Santa Dash.

Our HSA support the school and help us run events such as the Christmas Fair, which brings the school community together.