Curriculum Intent
Our aim is to provide children with the essential knowledge, skills and cultural capital that
they need in order to succeed in their education and in life.
Our priority is to ensure that all our children, including children from poorer backgrounds,
children who face challenges at home and children who struggle with learning, are confident
and fluent readers by the time they leave our school. This starts at the beginning of
Reception with early reading and learning to decode fluently through systematic synthetic
phonics. Many of our pupils do not have opportunities to read widely outside school and
story time is an important part of our reading curriculum. Story time introduces children to
rich texts that they might not otherwise choose to read by themselves. The breadth and
complexity of texts increases from term to term and year group to year group.
We provide a broad and balanced curriculum, teaching each subject as a discrete unit. Our
units of work contain the knowledge that, defined by the National Curriculum and the
context of our school, we have identified as essential.
We introduce children to a wide range of local and national cultural experiences. This
introduction to 'the best that has been thought and said', helps our pupils to widen their
horizons and build the confidence that they need in order to succeed.
Each subject curriculum sets out the knowledge and skills that children will build on, starting
in the early years up to the end of Year 6. We aim to provide children with a strong
knowledge base in every subject. When children are 'fluent' in knowledge they can then
apply this knowledge as skills.
Our curriculum is sequenced and progressive. Over time, children systematically accumulate
knowledge, building on their prior learning, making meaningful connections within and
across subjects. In this way, children build up a rich and detailed understanding which
remains in their long‐term memory.
We make our curriculum accessible for all children, including those with disabilities or
special educational needs by providing them with the support they need. In this way, they
gain the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in life.
A focus on language development runs through our curriculum, as many of our children
start school with limited vocabulary and speaking skills. We aim to progressively increase
the size and sophistication of children's vocabulary, including subject specific vocabulary.
Our curriculum offers our children a wide range of rich experiences that will help them to
develop into well‐rounded individuals who have much to contribute to society. We focus on
helping our children to grow and develop confidence, resilience and respect for others. We
have incorporated opportunities for building character into our curriculum, including
through sport, creativity, performing, and coaching and leadership sessions that teach
children good communication, problem solving and responsibility.
A rich and carefully planned programme of trips, visitors, workshops and after school clubs
enhance our curriculum offer and give children experiences that they do not always access
outside school.
Our curriculum provides many opportunities to teach pupils about the British values of
equality, tolerance, democracy, individual liberty and rule of law. In this way, our children
will be equipped to take their place in society as active citizens, economically independent,
exemplifying the British values.
Curriculum Implementation (Pedagogy)
Detailed unit plans and effective support from leaders ensure that teachers are skilled in
delivering our curriculum intent. The plans set out the key learning, links to prior and future
learning, links to other subjects, and the subject knowledge that the teacher needs.
We aim to keep our pedagogic approach consistent across the school and across different
subjects. These are important aspects of each lesson.
- Review of prior learning
- Present and discuss new material, breaking it down into small steps
- Ask questions
- Check pupils' understanding
- Provide scaffolds, where appropriate
- Independent practice
- Small teacher focus groups (guided groups)
- Address any misconceptions and give direct clear feedback
Curriculum Impact
We are confident that our curriculum intent and implementation result in children at our
school achieving highly.
Regular work scrutiny across the curriculum demonstrates that children's work is
consistently of a high quality.
Pupil voice tells us that children are able to talk about their knowledge and skills across the
curriculum.
Children show excellent attitudes to learning.
National tests and our internal pupil progress and attainment data evidences high
achievement, including for children with special educational needs.
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