What are the aims of our curriculum?
Our curriculum is designed with three aims in mind:
– To give pupils the appropriate experiences to develop as caring and successful learners
– To provide a rich ‘cultural capital’
– To provide a coherent, structured, academic curriculum that leads to sustained mastery for all and a greater depth of understanding for those who are capable.
How are the aims of our curriculum developed?
1. To give the pupils the appropriate experiences to develop as caring and successful learners.
Our School Values help to shape the curriculum and bring about the aims and values of our school. They are: Communication, Organisation, Resilience, Ambition, Leadership and Safety
2. To give a rich ‘cultural capital’.
Cultural capital is the essential knowledge and vocabulary 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. Our curriculum is committed to doing this.
3. To provide a coherent, structured, academic curriculum that leads to sustained mastery for all and a greater depth of understanding for those who are capable.
Our curriculum encompasses many elements to ensure this happens
a) A clear list of the breadth of topics that will be covered as part of the National Curriculum
b) The ‘key concepts’ that the children should understand that unlock the National Curriculum objectives.
c) An understanding of the context that the school is located in, in order to tailor appropriate opportunities and experiences for the children
d) The hierarchy of skills within each key concept to track progression between phases and depth of understanding
e) We will respond to local, national and international events to ensure the children are prepared for life beyond their time in this school.
All of these elements are underpinned by two key drivers for raising attainment, progress and aspiration:
– Quality First Teaching and Learning
– High aspirations and high-quality outcomes for children
Our curriculum is organised into overarching Topics. There are three topics for each year group (Autumn, Spring, Summer terms). We teach all of the National Curriculum subjects throughout the whole school year. Where links to topics cannot be made we teach subjects discretely. We always teach Science and Maths discretely. Where there are strong links to other subjects we make links to our overarching topics.
In the Autumn term the topics are driven by a historical focus, in the Spring the topics are driven by a geographical focus and in the Summer term they are driven by a country study. This does not mean we don’t teach geography in the Autumn or History in the Spring. We often make links between our English teaching and the topics that the children are learning about to ensure children are reading and writing with a purpose.
Our topics are taught in single year groups. We understand that knowledge must be embedded into children’s long term memory to make them successful learners. We also recognise that children need to learn appropriate skills to be able access and apply their knowledge. The teachers plan and teach lessons with our school values (Communication, Organisation, Resilience, Ambition, Leadership, Safety) at the heart of what we do.
We are proud of our ‘Personal Development’ curriculum that has been designed by our Personal Development leader to ensure that a cohesive and progressive approach to teaching and learning in: PSHE, Learning Behaviours, SMSC, British Values, Online Safety, Health Lifestyles, Mental Health Education and Well-being and Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) is adopted.
