Curriculum
Curriculum Principles
Our curriculum aims ensure that all pupils experience a broad and balanced curriculum where key curriculum driver concepts are embedded into long-term memory. Children build up their Cultural Capital by gaining knowledge that is of use to them for the rest of their lives and curriculum enrichment ensures that all children are provided with a wealth of experiences. The Trust aims to develop successful learners with high aspirations who are challenged and know how to make a positive contribution to their community and the wider society. Our curriculum development is based on academic research and the cognitive science of how children learn and is designed using our teacher’s experience and knowledge to meet the needs of all our pupils.
If you would like more information on the school's curriculum, please contact the school office.
INTENT
- Core texts linked to the Learning Challenge provide purposeful opportunities for writing and reading.
- Curriculum drivers (Science, Geography and History) and enhances (Art, Design and Technology) provide children with a broad, balanced and ambitious curriculum. Our curriculum goes beyond the National Curriculum by including learning that is relevant to our own locality and the children’s own experiences.
- All other areas of the curriculum such as: Maths, Computing, Music, Religious Education and Physical Education are taught discreetly and are interwoven where appropriate.
- By focusing on Cultural Capital, we provide children with knowledge that will be of use to them for the rest of their lives and close the divisions in society. Cultural Capital teaches children to understand the Great British Values and learn more about the best that has been thought and said over centuries.
- Cultural Capital, enrichment opportunities and subject topics ensure children are experiencing curriculum breadth.
- Subject concepts are thread through all year groups and ensure that children revisit these concepts over and over, building up their conceptual understanding and knowledge each year.
- Subject concepts provide a clear progression model and supports the planning, delivery and assessment of children in the wider curriculum; ensuring that learning is a change to long-term memory.
- A clearly sequenced curriculum allows children to make connections, build on prior knowledge and their experiences and ensures there is challenge and a clear journey within and across year groups.
- The wider curriculum provides opportunities for children to build up their academic and subject specific vocabulary, write across a range of subjects and apply mathematical skills in other areas of the curriculum.
IMPLEMENTATION
- Our teachers ensure that that Maths, writing and reading are taught daily.
- The development of our Learning Challenge curriculum is based upon academic research and the science behind how children learn.
- Our curriculum design ensures that the curriculum has spaced units of work that revisit the key concepts for each of the curriculum drivers allowing children to make connections and deepen their understanding.
- Subject specific Learning Challenges ensures that concepts are embedded and when cross-curricular links are made, they are done so in a way that strengthens children’s understanding through meaningful links.
- An emphasis on cultural capital ensures that we prepare children for life in modern Britain.
- The progression model is used to sequence our curriculum, ensuring that key concepts are built upon each year group.
- Enrichment opportunities are used to enhance the experiences children have and are used to develop their understanding of the learning that is or has taken place.
- Retrieval practice is a key element of lessons to ensure knowledge is repeatedly retrieved from long-term memory.
- Children know and understand our core values of Happy, Successful, Challenged and Proud and these support our pupils to make informed choices and become respectful individuals.
IMPACT
- Our curriculum driver concepts mean that learning takes place over a long period of time; ensuring that knowledge is stored in children’s long- term memory.
- We compare pupil progress over time using the key concepts which provide a clear progression across KS1, LKS2 and UKS2.
- Children are able to make connections between subjects and can articulate their knowledge of their locality, the world and its history.
- Lesson visits, coaching and mentoring ensure that expectations are always high and that teaching and learning is in line with the principles of our curriculum.
Our pupils experience a broad and balanced curriculum and have the knowledge, skills and experiences needed to go on and succeed in their education and life in modern Britain.