Curriculum Intent & Implementation

Our curriculum offer is rooted in a cast-iron conviction to promote high expectations across all subjects and address social disadvantage. This builds on the school’s leaders’ understanding of gaps in pupil knowledge and their barriers to learning and the knowledge and skills that pupils need in order to succeed in their next steps in education and beyond. Fundamental to this, is a determined drive to ensure that every pupil, regardless of their background, needs or ability will learn to read.

As a maintained school, we study the national curriculum subjects, religious education and age-appropriate relationships education. In planning our curriculum, we ensure pupils know how to keep themselves and others safe and understand why protected characteristics are important.  Pupils actively engage with, and understand the role they can play as citizens underpinned by understanding fundamental British values. 

We aim to offer a comprehensive, stimulating curriculum that provides pupils with opportunities to thrive and instil a thirst for learning. To this end, the school’s curriculum is planned and sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before, working towards defined end-points. We have high academic/vocational/technical ambition for all pupils, and we ensure disadvantaged pupils or pupils with SEND receive the full curriculum offer.

As school leaders, we recognise the school’s autonomy to choose its own curriculum approaches to reflect the school’s local context. Therefore our curriculum reflects regional STEM employment priorities and the pathways towards living fulfilling lives and contributing to society.  In planning, the curriculum, opportunities to explore appreciation of human creativity and achievement, including influential local, national and global individuals are embedded so that pupils become educated citizens. 

Our curriculum reflects a sharp focus upon early reading from the very start of school, as well as the typical needs of our pupils to broaden and deepen their vocabulary, develop greater oracy skills and help them self-regulate their behaviours and emotions. In EYFS learning and development requirements are met across all seven areas of learning responding to children's needs and interests whilst stimulating new interests and addressing barriers to learning.  In Key Stage 1, we focus upon ensuring that all pupils have embedded basic skills in English and mathematics so they are able to read, write and use mathematical knowledge, ideas and operations in a variety of contexts and situations. A clear emphasis is placed upon those pupils who struggle with their reading so that they catch up quickly. In addition, we provide opportunities for enriching pupils’ experiences across a wide range of subjects. 

Reflecting the challenging prior context our school, and as a short term measure, we are unapologetic in prioritising reading for Key Stage 2 learners, who require rapid catch-up to access the wider curriculum successfully. 

In Key Stage 2, we offer a challenging, broad, balanced and rich curriculum with opportunities for children to apply their knowledge and skills and reflect on why this is important in their own lives. To achieve this, our curriculum sets out the aims of a programme of education. It provides a structured co-ordinated pathway to maximise learning opportunities and ensure our aims are implemented.  It includes the knowledge, skills and understanding to be gained at each stage and enables the evaluation of pupils’ knowledge and understanding against those expectations over time ensuring that our learners both learn and remember more.