Cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviours, and skills that pupils can draw upon and which demonstrates their cultural awareness, knowledge and competence; it is one of the key ingredients a child will draw upon to be successful in society, their career and the world of work.

• Cultural capital promotes social mobility and success in our stratified 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, which is their starting point.

Each subject taught within the school day makes its own contribution to pupils’ cultural capital development. Our curriculum aims to combine knowledge with experience and judgement of what pupils see. The three elements that the Oxford Dictionary uses to define wisdom. Children participate in a wealth of trips, visits and experiences, supported by a wide range of extra-curriculum clubs.

We recognise that for pupils to aspire to and be successful academically and in the wider areas of their lives, they need to be given rich and sustained opportunities to develop cultural capital.

How do we promote Cultural Capital for our children?

At The Stoke Poges School we ensure that every child has the chance to access a wealth of experiences, through a variety of ways. We endeavour to ensure that all pupils from Reception up to Year 6 have the opportunity to make termly visits to the surrounding community and beyond. We plan for our lessons and extra-curricular activities to be broad and enriching.

We believe that learning from first-hand experience is very powerful and provides a lasting impact on the philosophy: “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand”.

All enrichment activities link to children’s learning that term. For example; children have taken part in local sports festivals with the local secondary schools to showcase their talents and learn new skills. Children have performed Christmas songs for the local community.

We invite experts into our school to work with our children, including authors, dramatists, musicians and representatives from the local community and services. Experts inspire our children to learn through sharing their passion for their subject area, which can raise our children’s aspirations for their future career.

In addition to this, we organise special events, curriculum days, and family events to enrich our pupils’ lives and challenge them to aspire to be people who leave a mark on the world.