Curriculum
Below you will find information regarding our approach to the curriculum, our curriculum overviews, and the Phonics & Reading Schemes that we use.
In addition to this, all year groups have memorable experiences planned for, including visits, experience days and practical learning both inside and outside the classroom.
Assessment opportunities are utilised so we know if the children have made progress and adapt our teaching as necessary. All learning is differentiated to meet the needs of the individual children in our care.
Parents can find out more about our curriculum at Parents Evenings, via newsletters and home school diaries, and at open afternoons or parent assemblies.
Our curriculum medium terms plans are on each class page.
If you would like any further information please speak to your child’s teacher at the end of the school day.
The Connected Curriculum
We believe that the purpose of the school’s curriculum is to educate the whole child.
They need to develop literacy and mathematical skills to enable them to make sense of the world they live in and apply these to all aspects of the school curriculum.
They need to be taught art, design and musical skills to lead to an awareness and appreciation of human achievement and the pleasure in creating.
Our children live in a variety of communities and families that are diverse, with many differences as well as things in common. The communities are made up of different sexes, different ages, different races, different religious beliefs and different cultural beliefs.
We want all children in schools in our MAT community to grow up respecting, tolerating and understanding the diversity and richness that all these different communities can offer to society. They are taught to do this to give them an understanding of life and the world that is broad and balanced and rich in experiences.
They also need to understand how their community is part of the wider community of their town, their county, their country and their world. They need geographical and historical skills, knowledge and understanding to understand how their communities evolved and are evolving.
Above all, we want our Curriculum to be exciting and engaging so that all children enjoy learning in all our schools.
Jane Bass
Connected Learning Trust CEO
Curriculum Intent
The breadth of our curriculum is designed to provide a holistic approach to teaching and learning, that develops ALL pupils to be independent, active learners who acquire the necessary knowledge, skills and concepts to support the next stage of their education.
When designing our curriculum, we had three goals in mind:
- To give pupils appropriate experiences to develop as confident, responsible citizens, while broadening their ‘cultural capital’;
- To ensure that disadvantaged and pupils with SEN do not have a reduced experience through providing a coherent, structured, academic curriculum.
- To ensure children have the opportunity to independently apply their learning, thus imbedding the skills learnt into long term memory. Consequently, leading to sustained mastery for all and a greater depth of understanding for those who are capable.
Our subject progressions have been developed in line with the national curriculum and specifically to ensure that, as child moves through our school, from Reception to Year 6, the skills and knowledge they acquire are cumulative in nature.
Implementation
Our curriculum design is based on evidence from cognitive science; three main principles underpin it:
1. Learning is most effective with spaced repetition.
2. Interleaving helps pupils to make links between their learning and aids long-term retention.
3. Retrieval of previously learned content is frequent and regular, which increases both storage and retrieval strength.
Our innovative teaching staff are given context free progressions in subjects to develop their own connections and approaches to delivery. This best utilizes staff strengths and enables them to develop their own creative themes based on the needs and interests of their classes.
Our staff then follow a three stage structure:
Stage 1: Teach and model
Stage 2: Practise and rehearse
Stage 3: Independent application
Impact
The impact of our curriculum is that by the end of each year, the vast majority of pupils have sustained mastery of the content, that is, they remember it all and are fluent in it; Some pupils have a greater depth of understanding. We track carefully throughout each stage, utilizing live feedback, self and peer assessment where ever possible, to ensure pupils are on track to reach the expectations of our curriculum.
Please click on the links below for individual subject progressions and some of our creative work around the school.