Find out more about
Our Curriculum
Knowledge, Skills & Learning Behaviours
We equip our children with a broad range of Knowledge, Skills & Learning Behaviours to become successful and responsible learners, ready for the next stage of their education. We achieve this through delivering irresistible learning opportunities that excite and engage all of our pupils.
This section explores the intent behind our curriculum and how it is implemented. There are also detailed pages that show this for each subject.
Curriculum Intent
Irresistible
Our curriculum is irresistible promoting a love of learning through exciting, engaging topics and carefully planned tasks which inspire children to want to learn more. Learning opportunities are developed beyond the classroom so that children can demonstrate their abilities in sports, art, music and through a variety of school leadership roles.
Rich
We provide a rich curriculum full of opportunities to read and engage with books from a broad range of genres and authors. Texts are used across the curriculum to develop vocabulary, build narrative skills and foster a wide range of views and diverse opinions about the world around us. Children learn through a variety of real life experiences on day trips, residential visits and theme days.
Ambitious
The curriculum is ambitious with a culture of providing children with learning in an environment of high challenge but low threat enabling all children to feel included and given access to learning which will make them think and offers them an appropriate level of challenge. Our enquiry led approach encourages children to ask and seek answers to questions, developing inquisitive minds and a spirit of curiosity.
Sequenced
The curriculum is carefully sequenced to build on prior knowledge and skills. Subject specific skills and knowledge form the basis of our curriculum in all subject areas but alongside this learning characteristics are taught to enable our children to be resilient, focused, respectful, independent, self-regulated individuals who understand boundaries.
Coherent
Our curriculum is coherent enabling relevant links to be made between subjects and providing meaningful opportunities for children to use and apply their knowledge and skills across the curriculum.
Curriculum Implementation
Hook Lesson
Topics start with a ‘hook’ to engage and inspire the children. A hook might be a trip or visitors, it could be an adult in role as a character to question, historical artefacts to explore and handle or a treasure hunt to find clues.
The goal is to engage and generate interest, questions and curiosity about the topic.
Enquiry Question
A key enquiry question drives the topic. The question is challenging and ambitious and not instantly answerable. Children will come back to this question as the topic progresses and respond to it at the end of the topic.
There are opportunity here to develop metacognition, thinking about thinking!
Investigate
Children collect information in interesting and varied ways, they investigate places and learn new knowledge and subject specific skills.
The substantive knowledge is the 'substance' of our curriculum it sets out what children will learn. Disciplinary knowledge is used when children consider where their knowledge originates from and how they can think like a Geographer or Historian.
The skills which need to be taught are outlined in each subject skills progression document, building on the EYFS aspirations. Subject planning enables all learners to practice and apply the skills required for their year group.
Connections and Comparisons
Children make sense of their new learning, they connect ideas and process the information through engaging activities to make them think and apply their knowledge and skills in that subject area.
Conclusions
Children draw their own conclusions, making their own meaning from their new learning. They return to the enquiry question and answer it using their new knowledge.
This provides rich opportunities for assessment of children’s knowledge and skills within the subject.