Curriculum Statement
Curriculum Intent 2021-24
1 Corinthians 16:14
Do everything in love
Guided by God’s love, our courage, compassion and advocacy inspire others nurturing, self-belief, resilience and confidence. Together, as one community and one family, we flourish academically, socially, morally and spiritually achieving our dreams and showing the world just who we are.
The Covid-19 pandemic challenged us to think differently about our curriculum intent, implementation and desired impact. We knew that our children needed opportunities to rebuild meaningful relationships with themselves, each other and our community. Where they have gaps in learning, these are addressed through an inspiring, broad, enjoyable and creative curriculum that engages, excites and reignites a love of learning. Our curriculum must celebrate our rich community and provide children with the opportunity to engage with the best of what has been thought, said and produced (cultural capital). The curriculum needs to be meaningful and will enable pupils to achieve fluency and mastery by revising coherent learning sequences. Children have opportunities to apply knowledge with increasing complexity to a range of contexts over time. Our curriculum must enable pupils to develop oracy, resilience, confidence, advocacy and their understanding of their place in the world at a time of significant societal change. The curriculum will teach social responsibility, enable pupils to act with compassion and moral purpose and will foster confidence and get them to think about beliefs and spirituality. Love is essential and never has the need been greater to ignite a lifelong love of learning.
The foundations: What are we trying to achieve?
- 1) Loving others: Strong inspiring respectful relationships, community identity, character education, cultural capital, citizenship and advocacy
- 2) Loving ourselves and something greater: Healthy, resilient, confident, communicators and problem solvers who value self-improvement and have self-belief. They develop morality through understanding of core Christian values and explore of belief and spirituality
- 3) Loving learning: Inspiring, meaningful and impactful learning with pupils achieving mastery, fluency and a broad body of knowledge set out in the National Curriculum
Curriculum Implementation (Pedagogy)
Loving Others:
- 1) Opportunities to collaborate in enquiry-based learning and to build knowledge over time. Staff will use questions and low stakes assessment to check for understanding and to deepen thinking and provide feedback.
- 2) SMSC opportunities underpinned by peer advocacy groups, pupil leadership, peer tutoring, coaching and social action (advocacy)
- 3) Community projects, first hand experiences (including trips, visitors and workshops), enquiry, focus events and celebrations lead to a love of learning
- 4) Inclusivity in which pupils value diversity and teaching is adapted to meet the needs of all pupils and their cognitive capacity. Staff will use ‘stages of practice’ to deliver content.
- 5) Opportunities for pupils to be advocates
Loving Ourselves:
- 1) Emotion coaching and zones of regulation developing courage, confidence and compassion
- 2) Growth Mindset and resillience with opportunities to work independently and collaboratively
- 3) Self-reflection, self-assessment and metacognition (learning to learn and loving learning)
- 4) Values-based worship allowing pupils to consider wider spiritual, social, cultural and moral questions.
- 5) Cross-curricular opportunities to develop healthy lifestyle choices and emotional and mental well-being.
- 6) Spiritual growth through planned and unplanned opportunities
Loving Learning:
- 1) An inspiring, rich and broad curriculum built on meaningful experiences and covers the full National Curriculum delivered through subject specific teaching and cross-curricular links.
- 2) Creative, cross-curricular themes/topics/projects rich in oracy (debating and presenting), language (vocabulary) and literacy built on a clear progression framework for each subject
- 3) A full range of clubs and enrichment activities
- 4) Pupils are able to link learning and build schemata with iterative learning opportunities that interrupt forgetting e.g. regular reviews. This enables pupils to achieve over time and demonstrate subject specific thinking.
- 5) Reading widely to unlock learning. Reading is power.
- 6) Skilled ongoing assessment leading to practise, support and challenge at the point of need
- 7) Celebrations and topic end points
Curriculum Impact (Outcomes)
Loving Others
- 1) Pupils develop character, build strong positive relationships built on respect, compassion and advocacy.
- 2) Pupils appreciate cultural capital curated by staff. This is evident in a broad range of subjects.
- 3) Pupils know their place in their communities (local, national and global)
- 4) Pupils make a positive contribution to society through advocacy.
- 5) Pupils are accepting of difference and value diversity and equality
- 6) Pupils are articulate and communicate well to a range of audiences
Loving Ourselves
- 1) Pupils are resilient, confident and have the courage to take on challenge
- 2) Pupils are physically, emotionally and mentally healthy and form positive relationships
- 3) Pupils understand the relevance of faith in today’s world ad explore spiritual and moral questions
- 4) Pupils have a strong personal sense of morality and spirituality. They build strong relationships and show forgiveness
- 5) Pupils know how they learn best and can apply this to new learning
Loving Learning
- 1) Pupils love learning
- 2) Pupils develop a deep body of knowledge. Pupils know more and remember more in each curriculum subject. They develop deeper learning and are able to apply subject knowledge and concepts e.g. thinking like a historian. They are well prepared for transition and achieve well
- 3) Pupils develop fluency and mastery in each area of learning and have the oracy skills to communicate effectively
- 4) Pupils are able to re-apply knowledge and themes to new contexts making links and connections needed to develop mastery learning
- 5) Pupils avoid cumulative dysfluency (this is when they don’t learn what they need to learn and therefore cannot access new learning later on) by staff identifying gaps and misconceptions and adapting the curriculum accordingly.