Curriculum

Our Approach

We are committed to ensuring that our curriculum takes a broad and balanced approach, and reflects the needs of our children, and the local context as well as real world issues to connect learning when planning topics.

We weave our key drivers of ‘Relationships, Diversity ,Inclusion and Ambition‘ throughout our planning across all of the key stages at our school. 

We plan the development of each driver appropriately, not only to reflect the understanding that children have at different times throughout school, but to map out which virtues children will develop too. We follow the process of noticing, developing and enacting to ensure that children’s understanding is progressive and built upon from previous learning.

Seeking the view of all stakeholders is invaluable to us, and we regularly give opportunities for views to be shared, not only when we are making changes in school, but also at regular intervals through the use of surveys and forums.

At Brookfield, we map out the key concepts for each subject that we intend pupils to learn and this forms the framework in which knowledge and skills are matched at the appropriate stage. The key concepts are linked to our desire to instil cultural capital in pupils. This is all documented in a progression of skills document for each subject.  

Our curriculum drivers

We have a robust curriculum offer for reading, through discreet teaching sessions, and reading is prioritised across and beyond the curriculum. 

At Brookfield, we have mapped out the progression of knowledge for each subject and each year group. This is referred to by leaders when creating curriculum overviews and staff when ensuring planning matches knowledge requirements during curriculum planning meetings and activity.

Concepts are revisited as part of our retrieval strategy and also recapped in the design of the knowledge organisers used at the beginning of each topic. This allows pupils to accommodate the forgetting curve and ensures that once they have been taught and understood concepts, they are not disregarded.

Relationships:

• We believe our children need to develop the skills to work well with other people.
• Children need to know how to speak and listen with respect in a variety of different situations. 
  
  Diversity and Inclusion:

• We believe our children need to develop an understanding about where they live and the wider world.
• Through learning about the world, we want them to understand their role in society and develop respect towards the environment, communities and religions. 
  
  Ambition – healthy minds and bodies:
• It is important to us that all members of our school community are healthy, both physically and mentally.

• Throughout life, our children will face many difficult challenges and need to have the mental and physical strength to be successful and happy.
• Through teaching children how their brains work, we aim to equip children with the skills that they need to be the very best that they can be. 

Our children need to become resilient to be able to deal with different challenges across the curriculum and in the wider world.

They need to develop the ability to solve problems without giving up. Developing the skills to work independently and become resourceful will be key to this.

Phonics & Reading Schemes in Operation: Little Wandle