Curriculum
Curriculum Intent Statement
"Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at."
Stephen Hawking
Vision and Values
We are a Church of England School; we embrace the foundation of our school and the diversity of beliefs and religions in our school community. Our distinctively Christian vision guides our choices about curriculum to enable all children and adults to flourish. Our school vision and values link us together and our curriculum is built around our children. Through our curriculum we aim to give our children the knowledge they need to be informed and thoughtful members of our community and to be prepared for future success (cultural capital).
Curriculum Design
Our curriculum gives children the knowledge and skills they need to prepare for later life. Where children are disadvantaged we aim to play our part in redressing this by providing children with what they need to be successful in today’s world. Our curriculum has been designed to provide our children with rich and enjoyable learning experiences relevant to their needs and interests. We want children to understand their place in a rapidly changing world where our lives are linked in a global society. The children learn to be active participants in their learning, practising roles such as foresters, ecologists, politicians, authors, archaeologists, mathematicians, artists, philosophers and authors. Reading is prioritised to allow pupils to access the full curriculum offer. Our curriculum, and its delivery, is constructed to promote independent thinking and learning so that the children are able to make conscious choices and live deliberately. Children learn to interact with each other, be collaborative, responsible and positive contributors to society; we recognise that in order to do this they need to understand themselves.
Curriculum Coverage
Our curriculum coverage is based on the National Curriculum, locally agreed syllabus for religious education and relationship and sex education relevant to the children’s age and stage of development. We teach children how to be deep thinkers, aware of life’s big questions and how they can interact in a conscious and deliberate way with the world. Our curriculum is proactive in teaching children ‘Life Skills’ that will help them be safe, independent, happy and responsible citizens in a global society. We have developed the content of the curriculum to give the children what they need to prepare them for future success.
Our aim for children as learners is that they will be develop a strong sense of moral purpose. They will be confident, independent and empathetic with a thirst for knowledge. They will know how to keep themselves healthy and they will be curious and engaged with the global context of their lives. They will learn how to take measured risks, how to deal with life’s challenges with resilience and how to embrace joy and success. They will learn that success comes from effort (hard work), deliberate practice and perseverance. Our Learning Powers help them to reflect on how they learn as well as the context of their learning.
School Staff
Adults in our school are learners too and we expect all staff to be responsible for their own professional development. We create opportunities for staff to learn together, to follow evidence and test research related to good learning and teaching. The adults in our school model the positive attitudes towards learning that they expect from the children. They are reflective and dedicated to developing children’s knowledge, skills and understanding inspiring children to enjoy learning, achieve success and feel contented and fulfilled.
Parents and Carers
Parents and carers are key to children’s success in school. We aim to ensure that families feel part of the school community and share its values. Our school will support parents by keeping them informed of the curriculum, of their children’s progress and achievements and by providing supporting materials to support their children’s learning at home.
Curriculum Framework
Our curriculum framework is creative, inspiring and experiential. It is structures to ensure that the children’s learning is cohesive and progressive so that each year they build on the learning that has come before. As children’s learning progresses they learn more, remember more and develop a framework of ideas (schema) in each subject. The curriculum is designed and delivered in a way to enable children to embed key concepts into their long term memory and apply them fluently, connecting previous learning to new learning (in plans and expectations that progress from year to year) and practically, by for example, recapping, making links, deliberate practice, learning domain specific vocabulary and by developing memory maps and organisers. The curriculum has clearly defined end points (end of year expectations) that are assessed and evaluated in terms of what children have learned and in terms of how effective the teaching has been.
We have an expectation that all pupils can and will achieve.
Phonics and Reading Scheme
At ASSR our experienced EYFS and KS1 team have created a bespoke Phonics and Early Reading programme specific to our school.
Drawing on the best aspects of well known programmes, including Twinkl Phonics, Read Write Inc, and Oxford Reading Tree, our comprehensive programme explicitly links phonics learning to reading books.
Phonics Teaching programme at ASSR
ASSR Phonics Teaching sequence
English
Maths
Science
RE
Geography
History
Computing
PSHE and RSHE
Art
Design Technology
Music
Languages
PE