Children at Lodge Lane Infant School learn through ‘Imaginative Inquiry’.

Imaginative Inquiry is an approach, which places the aims and values of the school at the centre of all learning.

To make learning more exciting and engaging, inquiries are taught through imaginative contexts or stories. The imaginative aspect of the curriculum is mainly developed through drama sessions. However it can also be developed through classes receiving letters from fictional characters, telephone calls, mysterious messages left in the classroom or through educational visits and visitors coming into school. Whilst this imaginative aspect of our inquiries is very exciting, the children always know and understand that it is not real, however we find they choose to ‘believe’ because it is exciting and fun. Consequently it is not unusual for children to come home and say that Jack (from Jack and the beanstalk), an alien or a zoo keeper has visited their class today...

Our inquiry-led curriculum also allows us to work in partnership with children. We do this by exploring two questions with the children when new inquiries start. These are:

• What do we already know...
• What do we wonder...

These questions allow us to plan learning which is challenging as well as to incorporate activities, which the children may be interested in.