Rationale

• The starting point in designing our curriculum was our school's mission statement: 'to foster a community in which everyone flourishes'
• We strive, where possible,  to make our curriculum offer bespoke to the community we serve
• We strive to provide pupils with knowledge which is aspirational and often complex.
• When deciding what to include in our curriculum, we did so in a way that enabled us to focus on providing knowledge and skills we consider essential while at the same time making provision for knowledge which is not essential but is of intellectual merit.
• Knowledge is structured in such a way that requires children to activate prior learning to make connections.
• There is no expectation that teachers should 'rush' children through material. Teachers are professionals and are trusted to make decisions on when learning should be revisited.
• The curriculum is the progress model. If children demonstrate they know more and remember more, they are said to be making progress
• Our school employs approaches associated with retrieval practice to support children in remembering key learning.
• We aim for our curriculum to be flexible and agile. Significant recent events, such as the pandemic, for example, have been incorporated into the curriculum because they are relevant and of interest to pupils.

If you would like to find out more about our curriculum please speak to your child's class teacher or visit the National Curriculum page on the DfE website.