Our Curriculum – The Whitley Park Way!
At Whitley Park we aim to spark children’s curiosity and enable them to explore learning in depth. We recognise that children need to learn skills alongside knowledge, in order to equip them with the learning tools essential for life-long learning. Therefore, our planning focuses on both skills and knowledge and the intrinsic relationship between the two to enable our children to achieve their full educational potential.
Our curriculum ensures that we meet all of the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum (2014). However, this has been enhanced and agreed by the staff and governors of Whitley Park to ensure that the content is best matched to the needs of our children.
Our intent is to enable our children to be well prepared for each next stage of their educational journey over time. We aim to promote good learning behaviour and safety alongside children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. We expect our children to develop a sense of purpose, identity and responsibility to each other.
Our curriculum is broad and balanced. It is designed to meet the needs of all children within our diverse community, building upon their knowledge, understanding and skills whatever their starting point. It is our intent to give all pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND, the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life.
The curriculum is carefully sequenced so that children develop their knowledge and skills over time and are able to apply what they know and can do with increasing fluency and independence. As a school, we understand that reading is the gateway to academic success and ensure children are immersed in a wide variety of rich texts which not only spark their imagination and curiosity but also widen their vocabulary and deepen their understanding across the curriculum. In this way, we prepare children to be future readers and future learners.
Curriculum Intent
Each area of the curriculum is carefully planned and sequenced to ensure progression within and across a year group and the school. Through this careful planning, we aim to ensure that our offering:
- develops children’s schema and understanding of key concepts linked to the national curriculum and individual subject disciplines
- is clear, coherent and well-sequenced enabling children to know more, do more and remember more.
- Is tailored to our context, including a strong focus on core subject content
- promotes good learning behaviour and safety alongside children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and responsibilities.
Curriculum Implementation
At Whitley Park, we place an emphasis on quality first teaching in the classroom. Teachers use assessment to know their pupils and provision is adapted to meet the needs of all learners. Teaching is designed to help pupils build upon prior learning so that knowledge and understanding is embedded in children’s long-term memory. Curriculum maps for each subject and year group have been created to ensure that there is coherent progression of knowledge and skills across each year group and each key stage.
Our methods are based on research and best practice. We continually evaluate our success through careful monitoring and assessment. It is our belief that learning takes place best when children understand the purpose of what they are learning and have clear expectations and routines. Across the school, the following approaches are essential features of our shared approach:
- Carefully considered big questions and end points for each topic.
- Core concepts are deliberately planned to spiral through the curriculum over time
- Each unit/topic has a central subject driver.
- Purposeful opportunities for regular review and practice are essential
- Language and oracy are developed through each unit, including opportunities for children to present to an audience
- Unit/topic classroom displays reflect the subject driver for the term and the sequence of learning
- Each unit is linked to a related text that forms part of a school curriculum book spine
- Subject specific and linked tier 2 vocabulary is deliberately taught through each unit/topic
- Trips and visits are carefully selected and planned each short term to compliment each curriculum driver and support the development of cultural capital
Impact
The curriculum is the vehicle through which the school delivers one shared vision.
For children to have high aspirations for themselves and the confidence to progress and achieve well in all aspects of life.
For further information please see our Curriculum subject overviews