Intent

We aim to raise aspirations by providing opportunities and experiences through our curriculum, for all of our children, which enable them to achieve their dreams and never give up on their goals.  Through our Christian values, our curriculum provides our children with the essential skills and knowledge that they will require to live in their future world, including the development of essential life skills. In order to do this, our children need to develop a greater understanding of global issues and how they can play their part in making our world a better place for future generations.

Our curriculum:

• Raises aspirations for our children through challenging questions, posed at the start of each unit of work, which are explored throughout the term. There is a focus on developing pupils’ vocabulary in each termly unit of work, particularly within the focus subject.

• Enables our children to develop essential life skills, which will enable them to succeed in all that they do, through our Edison Core Learning curriculum as well as through revisiting our Christian values throughout our units of work.

• Teaches our children to be open-minded, tolerant, fair, respectful and responsible citizens who embrace equality and are eager to contribute to local and global communities by exploring ‘big questions’ which have a global dimension.

• Provides children with experiences and opportunities which they may not have outside school through visits, visitors and a strong focus on the arts, sport and outdoor learning.

 Implementation

The National Curriculum provides pupils with an introduction to the essential knowledge that they need to be educated citizens.

The National Curriculum is just one element in the education of every child. There is time and space in the school day and in each week, term and year to extend beyond the National Curriculum specifications. The National Curriculum provides an outline of core knowledge around which teachers can develop exciting and stimulating lessons to promote the development of pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills as part of the wider school curriculum.

At Two Village, our curriculum is taught in a thematic and cross-curricular way wherever possible. Alongside National Curriculum Objectives we teach our children progressive skills, as well as essential life skills through our Skills Builder Programme, alongside reinforcing our core Christian values. We also encourage our children to consider big questions through each unit of work, whilst exploring different key concepts identified for their unit of work.

Our curriculum enables children to:

• Develop a love of learning
• Be aspirational in their hopes and dreams for their future and for what they are able to achieve during their time with us and beyond.
• Access experiences and opportunities which they may not have outside school through visits, visitors with a strong focus on the arts, sport and outdoor learning.
• Be open-minded, tolerant, fair, respectful and responsible citizens who embrace equality and diversity
• Feel safe and valued as part of a caring community that celebrates success
• Be independent thinkers / learners who are able to seek solutions creatively and cooperatively
• Develop an enquiring mind and be able to ask questions
• Be able to listen and articulate responses showing consideration to others
• Be proactive in their responsibilities towards the community, society, the environment and economy, linking ‘real life’ with their learning
• Be aware of and recognise their own learning needs and be involved in planning future steps
• Develop a sense of self-esteem: be well balanced and healthy individuals
• Have a desire to think about and help local and global communities

Organisation

At Two Village our curriculum has been developed as a two year rolling programme. This enables teachers in our one form entry primary school to work collaboratively in key stage phases to plan and teach exciting, inspiring and challenging lessons and provide experiences for our pupils which encourage curiosity.

The curriculum is divided into three ‘topics’ each year, which change termly. Each term has a specific subject focus which is the same across the school. This enables pupils to become immersed in the subject. During each term, there is a very strong focus on the identified subject, however, other subjects are also taught throughout the term.  Within our curriculum plan, learning objectives from the National Curriculum and key skills are identified for each topic to ensure complete coverage of these and clear progression throughout the school.

Each termly topic has an overall theme linked to the focus subject, but also has a ‘big question’ to be answered and 3 to 4 key concepts to be explored, including at least one of our school’s values each term. Children and teachers explore the question throughout the topic, which may lead them to follow a different path than originally intended.  The learning objectives and skills identified on the curriculum plans must be covered but are a minimum expectation. Providing the identified knowledge and skills identified are covered, teachers and children are encouraged to take their learning in other directions if it helps them to answer their question and deepen their understanding of the key concepts and world issues.

Our Curriculum Map indicates which topics are taught to which groups of children and in which terms. Over each academic year, each child has the opportunity to experience the full range of National Curriculum subjects. In developing our curriculum, areas of learning from different curriculum subjects which contain similar themes or links have been identified and placed together. This allows for a more creative and cross curricular approach to learning and encourages children to apply skills in a variety of ways, as well as make links in their learning.

Medium term or topic plans are developed to ensure coverage of the curriculum. These include learning intentions and activities with differentiation identified where appropriate.

In addition to our main curriculum, we also offer Forest School Sessions for our pupils. These lessons are provided in addition to our core curriculum and provide pupils with the opportunities to take risks, make choices and initiate their own learning, as well as develop a range of important life skills. These sessions also help children to understand, appreciate and care for the natural environment. We also offer a range of extra-curricular activities which take place during lunchtimes or after school. These change termly so that a range of activities can be provided throughout the year.

Impact

Our curriculum will enable our pupils to recall and apply knowledge and skills that they have learnt with confidence, year on year, as well enabling them to develop essential life skills which will support them in their future lives and careers. In addition to this, our curriculum will provide our children with a wider view of the world and global issues to help them better understand the world in which they will live as adults. Alongside this learning, all of our children will be encouraged to believe that they can achieve anything that they want to achieve with belief and support.

The impact of our curriculum is measured in a variety of ways, including assessment of children’s knowledge and skills, alongside regular monitoring of teaching and learning.

This includes:

• Triangulation of a range of evidence, including pupils’ work, pupil discussions, feedback and observations of lessons.
• Start and end of unit assessments which show progress made
• End of year or key stage outcomes
• Termly evaluations of the curriculum made by staff and pupils
• Pupils’ work in books, on displays and in end of unit outcomes
• Assessments made by teachers against skills/knowledge covered each term and NFER tests for English and maths
• Attendance and behaviour data and pupils’ attitudes to learning