Intent

Our curriculum content and delivery:

• Provide a broad and balanced education, incorporating the full range of National Curriculum subjects.
• Enable pupils to develop knowledge, understand concepts and acquire skills that will enable and inspire them to succeed in life, particularly in the next stage of their education.
• Promote a love of learning, encouraging pupils to become curious, inquiring and independent learners with ‘broader horizons’ and high aspirations for their futures.
• Ensure that there are ambitious expectations for all learners, irrespective of background and additional needs, enabling them to fulfil their potential.
• Equip pupils with core skills which they can identify and apply independently to a range of situations across the whole curriculum and in their wider lives.
• Promote our school ethos and values in order to support pupils’ personal and social development, putting respect at the core of their conduct and relationships.
• Nurture pupils’ physical and mental health, particularly their resilience, equipping them with the skills and knowledge to maintain good health throughout their lives.
• Enable pupils’ creativity to flourish through a wide range of learning opportunities and teaching methods.
• Promote the development of pupils’ individual interests, strengths and hobbies and effectively utilise the expertise and special interests of members of staff and the wider community.

Implementation

Our curriculum implementation is organised as follows to best meet our curriculum intent:

• Our curriculum is based on the subjects and content of the National Curriculum.
• Some of the content is specifically designed/modified to reflect the local context and the expertise and interests of teaching staff and pupils.
• Subjects are taught discretely. However, all opportunities to exploit meaningful cross-curriculum links are taken. Therefore, where possible, the content of termly units of work for wider curriculum subjects complement each other. For example, learning about nutrition in science; and designing and making a healthy soup in DT.
• All subjects are taught in mixed ability class groupings. See our Inclusive Practice statement and Teaching and Learning strategies document.
• The curriculum progression document for each subject ensures that the teaching of substantive and disciplinary knowledge is appropriately sequenced from Pre-school through to Y6.
• The teaching of substantive and disciplinary knowledge is carefully sequenced within each unit of work. Each unit starts with the activation and recap of prior knowledge. The teaching is sequenced to move from more simple and concrete concepts to those that are more complex and abstract. Knowledge that has been previously taught is systematically recapped at the beginning of every lesson through ‘Nothing New, Just Review’. Knowledge is also revisited and reinforced through the regular use of ‘low stakes testing’, such as quizzes. Many units of work culminate in an outcome which allows the children to demonstrate what they have learnt.
• Key concepts for each wider curriculum subject have been identified and are used as another way of enabling the children to learn more effectively by making connections between their learning from lesson to lesson, topic to topic, and year to year. It is made clear to children which key concepts they are learning during every lesson.
• Knowledge maps for units of work are used in most wider curriculum subjects to provide for children an easy reference to key knowledge.
• Wider curriculum subjects provide an excellent opportunity to consolidate English and maths substantive and disciplinary knowledge.
• There are opportunities for creative and practical curriculum delivery: craft, modelling, drama, debates, music, film and storytelling, for example.
• A variety of methods for recording learning are used: artwork, models, photographs, mind-maps, charts, tables, graphs, writing in role, presentations, comic strips, films, animations etc.
• Many units of work are enriched with a relevant trip or visitor to school.
• Parental engagement is maximised through bi-termly parent assemblies, termly ‘Come and See’ events and termly home learning projects, as well as a wide range of curriculum-based parent workshops.
• See our EYFS policy for information on how our early years’ curriculum is delivered.

Impact

 The impact of the curriculum is monitored in a number of ways:

• The schemes of work for each unit of work provide the framework for curriculum delivery but the formative assessment carried out by teachers informs precise teaching of individual groups of children to ensure that their needs are being effectively met.
• Quality Assurance is an ongoing process throughout the year led by the Wider Leadership team. This involves lesson observations, learning walks, book and planning scrutiny and pupil voice interviews. This enables school leaders to evaluate whether the curriculum is fit for purpose and whether it is being delivered in a way that matches our curriculum intent. Monitoring is also undertaken by wider curriculum subject leads.
• Termly pupil progress interviews and year team data reviews identify pupils who are making accelerated progress and those who have made insufficient progress (based on teacher assessment and NTS test data). This gives staff an opportunity to review and modify curriculum content, if necessary, in order to meet the needs of all pupils effectively.
• Data analysis by Phase Leaders, SLT and the SENDCO at the end of seasonal terms tracks the progress of different groups of children, including PP and FSM pupils; pupils with SEND and EAL; gender groups; and those with low attendance/persistent absence. This also informs curriculum review.
• Governors monitor whether the school is complying with its funding agreement and teaching a ‘broad and balanced curriculum’ which includes the required subjects, through monitoring visits in conjunction with school leaders and receiving reports from curriculum leads at governors’ meetings.

For more information regarding the curriculum offer, please see Mrs Spackman (Deputy Head teacher - Curriculum).

 Alternatively you may wish to speak to the Year Group Leader for the respective year group.