Curriculum

Ashby Hill Top Primary School Curriculum

Our Curriculum Intent-
What are we trying to achieve?

At Ashby Hill Top Primary School, our curriculum aims to support both academic achievement and personal development, preparing our children well for the next stage of their education and beyond. We strive to provide an engaging, relevant and broad curriculum which equips our children with the knowledge, skills and personal qualities necessary to lead a fulfilling and rewarding life.

Our curriculum is built around the objectives set out in the EYFS Framework, the National Curriculum for all subjects in Years 1 to 6 and the Locally Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education.

Our curriculum has been designed to provide pupils with a clear, progressive framework of skills, knowledge and understanding that build sequentially year on year.

We have chosen a range of topics, influential people and themes that provide our young learners with a reflection, not only of our modern and diverse world but also of our collective journey. Our choices represent the knowledge necessary to develop an understanding of the main movements for change and progress that have shaped the world that we know.

Children study people of importance within their fields and these reflect the power players of their time. As we study the past, diversity is less well represented, as it was in the social and political nature of the time. The inclusion of influential women and people of colour enable discussions about past inequality and our society’s movement towards non-discrimination and equal opportunities. More recent influential figures to be studied reflect the diversity of our modern World.

Alongside movements of global and national significance our curriculum has also planned learning on a more local scale. To help enable pupils to become responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society we will develop their sense of pride in our locality through studying its rich history, local environment, culture and traditions.

The development of a rich vocabulary is structured clearly within our curriculum, ensuring that pupils have the understanding of the words needed to access high quality texts, contribute to discussions and share their own views and opinions. A rich and varied vocabulary will prepare our learners for their future education. Language will be explicitly taught throughout all areas of learning and vocabulary enhanced.

Through our curriculum we aim to give our pupils the skills and knowledge necessary to enable them to become:

Responsible Citizens who aim to inspire others and make a positive contribution to society
Successful Learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve
Confident Individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives

We believe our curriculum to be ambitious and inclusive to all pupils, giving them the knowledge and cultural capital that they need to succeed in their next steps in education. Where necessary, individual adaptations are made to meet the needs of children with high levels of SEND.

Our Curriculum Implementation-
How do we organise learning?

Reducing demand on the learner’s working memory helps pupils to learn more effectively. This theory is strategic in our teaching and learning methods. Retrieval practice is built into our weekly routines through a variety of games, quizzes and activities. Spaced retrieval and interleaving are used to remember knowledge and learning from previous units and topics. This ‘low stakes’ testing is a powerful tool in enabling pupils to remember key information automatically, leaving more mental capacity in their working memory.

Knowledge Organisers are used throughout Key Stage Two, as well as with younger children where appropriate. They identify the key knowledge for a unit of work or theme that we wish pupils to have in their long term memory. These are shared with families as well as being used frequently in lessons.

Our curriculum is organised into two year bands, which match our Phase Groups, and enable the mixed age classes to work on a rolling programme. Phase Teams plan together, resulting in consistency across the Phase and equality between classes.

Themes or topics are planned that last up to a term for the older children, less for the younger children. These interweave knowledge between subjects where links are beneficial for children’s understanding of bigger ideas, however, some units are taught as stand-alone. Each topic begins with an inspiration day and a knowledge harvest from which we can evaluate the children’s prior knowledge.

In Foundation subjects classes are taught as a whole, using the Mastery Approach. More advanced learners working towards expanding the depth and understanding of a subject as others are mastering the basics of the key concepts. Core subjects provide Year Group expectations and, where necessary, classes may be split into smaller groups in some lessons, for example, phonics in Key Stage One.

The knowledge, skills, concepts and vocabulary that will be taught in each subject are laid out in our Subject Progression Documents, as are all of the links across our curriculum. This is enriched by a range of high quality experiences and extra-curricular activities.

The curriculum is designed with books and knowledge at its heart to ensure that children develop as strong readers and have a secure vocabulary base, which will encourage a deep understanding of the world.

Click here to find more information for parents on the curriculum.

Full Curriculum Statement 2021
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Impact- We will be successful when

The impact of our curriculum can be best seen in the body of skills and knowledge that our pupils accumulate over time. Pupils who can engage in high quality discussion, can question, understand wide concepts and make links in their learning whilst having the skills to produce an excellent standard of work is our desired output.

Staff measure pupil’s progress towards this through a range of frequent formative assessments, as mentioned above. Teaching staff have an informed overview of their class, knowing when to move learning on or when further direct teaching is needed to ensure that all pupils are achieving their objective. Additional support and interventions are used successfully to support whole class teaching.

Development and monitoring of our curriculum is a whole school process during which every age group and subject is closely scrutinized by senior leaders, subject coordinators and class teachers. Through this shared knowledge of best practice can we achieve a curriculum that develops children’s skills, values and knowledge over their time with us in the most effective way.

Content of the Curriculum by Year Group