Curriculum

In our inclusive and happy school, we make sure everyone feels welcomed, valued and valuable.

Our safe and inspiring learning environment helps us work towards achieving our best, in all that we do, so that we can become independent and resilient members of our wider community.

Intent

Our aim is to develop children into respectful, tolerant, thoughtful and determined young people, who aren’t afraid to ‘get it wrong’. These individuals will be the scientists, historians, geographers and artists of the future, helped by a carefully thought-out and ambitious curriculum design.  We understand it is vital for every child to succeed academically, but that they also need to develop well personally and socially, if they are going to lead fulfilled and happy professional and personal lives. Our definition of learning is a change in long term memory, with pupils able to retain, recall, transfer and use learning in a range of contexts.

Children will be able to effectively communicate their understanding, enabling them to work cooperatively with their peers and will become independent learners and take responsibility for their learning. They will develop resilience when dealing with challenging concepts, which can be applied to other aspects of their learning and their lives as a whole.

Implementation

• We design, organise and plan our curriculum, and its delivery, to enable the development of knowledge and an application of skills, where both are interlinked.

The curriculum is planned as follows:

• 2 Year overview.
• Each subject has:
  • A clearly defined intent.
  • Coverage for each key phase: EYFS; KS1; LKS2; UKS2
  • Progression of skills map
  • Assessment opportunities (linked to skills taught)
  • Key vocabulary for all key phases

• Children are able to revisit and retrieve previous learning, allowing them a deeper understanding of the key knowledge, skills and processes within all subjects.

• Faculty groups are responsible for designing our progressive curriculum maps, which offer a personalised, challenging experience, contributing to every child receiving a full, rich and broad curriculum; this enables all children to have the opportunity to reach their full potential in all subjects. It also offers the flexibility, when required, for the curriculum to be reviewed and adapted, to meet the needs of the children

• We understand our school context and the benefits and issues this creates for the children in our care. Careful analysis and discussion about our pupils’ backgrounds, life experiences and culture has helped us to design a curriculum which celebrates their strengths whilst helping them to overcome the potential barriers to learning.

• We believe that by working closely with parents and carers, developing speaking and listening skills, giving them the ability to speak clearly and to understand spoken language - from a very early age, and by focusing on the resilience and aspirations of our children, they will be ready to successfully meet the challenges of the next stage of their education and their lives.

• We have designed, organised and timetabled our curriculum to ensure every child receives an appropriate mix of academic and personal development which means that in practice, our curriculum places equal importance on both core and foundation subjects.

Impact

The range of experiences we offer support our children academically, and ensure that their spiritual, moral, social and cultural needs are met. We are incredibly proud of our curriculum and the experiences we offer our children. As a result, our children take pride in their school, play an active part in the community and uphold our British values; the curriculum provides the skills, knowledge and confidence needed to succeed.