Our curriculum
We believe that good learners show a curiosity about the world and the ability to grasp ideas, link them together and think critically about them. Most importantly, they enjoy their learning and are motivated by a variety of subjects. In order to develop these characteristics, children need to be confident in the core skills of English and Maths and these subjects are at the centre of our curriculum. In the wider curriculum, pupils develop knowledge and skills in subjects such as the humanities and arts in the context of topics that are meaningful and interesting to them. Pupils explore subjects, learn and link facts and have opportunities to be creative in their response to their learning. We seek every opportunity to enrich children’s learning through educational visits to places both near and further afield and children will usually go on a day trip every term. This might be to a museum, gallery or park with activities linked to the topic being studied in class.
Intent:
The breadth of our curriculum has been designed with 3 goals in mind:
- To give pupils appropriate experiences to prepare them for the opportunities and challenges of an unknown, yet exciting future, instilling in them a sense of belief to enable them to be creators of their own destiny.
- To develop a rich range of experiences to enable them put learning into context.
- To provide a coherent and structured curriculum that leads to sustained mastery for all and a greater depth of understanding for those who are capable.
Curriculum drivers are linked to our whole school BRAVE values (Belong, Responsible, Aspirational, Value diversity and Empowered) which shape and run through the entire curriculum and develop the aims and values of the school.
- Belong: helping our pupils to be active and responsible members of the school and the wider community, including nationally and globally.
- Responsible: ensuring that our pupils are aware of and take responsibility for themselves, their school, their community and global issues.
- Aspirational: helping our pupils to build aspirations and know available possibilities for their future lives.
- Valuing diversity: developing our understanding and appreciation of our diverse school and local community as well as the wider world.
- Empowered: ensuring that our pupils have self-determination and resilience to enable them to articulate what is important to them and be change makers.
Teachers plan learning on a weekly, half-termly and annual basis. Weekly and half-termly planning is always adapted and designed based on what children already know, any gaps in their knowledge and with the end of year programmes of study in mind. There is a clear progression of skills and knowledge built within the subjects.
Implementation:
Our curriculum is based on evidence from cognitive science; three main principles that underpin it are:
- Learning is most effective with spaced repetition.
- Interleaving helps pupils to discriminate between topics and aids long-term retention.
- Retrieval of previously learned content is frequent and regular, which increases both storage and retrieval strength.
We believe that sustained mastery takes time. Nothing is sustained until it rests within pupils’ long-term memories. This cannot be assessed in the short term so when assessing, we will ask how well pupils are coping with the curriculum content and how well they are retaining previously taught content. Continuous provision provides retrieval practise for previously learned content.
Curriculum Overviews
Brentfield Primary School Curriculum Overview 2019-20
Autumn Term 1
Autumn Term 2