Curriculum

George White Junior – Curriculum Principles

The term “curriculum” in our school refers to the full range of educational opportunities and experiences on offer to our pupils. This includes:

The national curriculum as mapped out for each year group through our “I can statements.”
The local curriculum – local studies, visits and visitors etc
Enrichment activities
Personal and social development including British Values and our RESPECT values

Our curriculum:

• is underpinned by our aims, values and purpose including our RESPECT ethos

• develops the whole child – knowledge, skills, understanding and attitudes.

• is broad, balanced and has clear progression in subject knowledge and skills.

• is flexible and responsive to individual needs and interests (e.g. through choice of the ‘Key Questions’ on Knowledge Organisers)

• encourages the use of environments beyond the classroom.

• makes meaningful links between areas of knowledge across the curriculum

• makes links with the major issues of our time.

• has a local, national and international dimension.

• is filled with rich first-hand purposeful experiences.

Our curriculum maps for each year group set outs:

The six half termly topics to be taught in each year group.
The Power of Reading units which link to these topics
The foundation subject objectives to be covered through these topics
These are colour coded to match up to the “I can statements for each subject/year group"

We use knowledge organisers as a way of agreeing and communicating the core content to be covered in the topic. These are shared with parents via the school website.

We follow an agreed cycle to a topic which supports assessment for learning, increases pupils’ engagement and demonstrates the impact of the topic on pupils’ learning.

Stage of topic	What/Why?	Engagement through…
A hook	An activity at the start of each topic which is designed to create high levels of interest in the new topic. This may just be a starter activity or a full lesson.	Curiosity? Controversy?
Introduction of the Knowledge Organiser	An activity which gives children time to unpack/explore the content of the knowledge organiser in an interesting way and ask questions. (e.g. through co-operative learning activities, a QR code trail, a team quiz) What did they already know? What surprises them? What might they like to explore further?	Context? Connections? Curiosity? Controversy? Co-operation? Collaboration?
Tell the children the aims and end outcome of the project	Give children an understanding of where what they will be learning fits into the big picture. What skills will they develop. How will they present their learning?	Context? Connections?
Exploration of key questions	The knowledge organisers provide children with quick access to the core content they need to cover. This should give space in the topic to explore some Key Questions in depth (both independently and collaboratively). These questions should allow children to move beyond surface learning to a deeper understanding of the topic. It should give them the opportunity to struggle, debate, explore, make connections, change their minds etc	Challenge Competition? Context? Connections? Curiosity? Controversy? Co-operation? Collaboration?
Outcome	An interesting and relevant way of presenting their learning to an audience beyond their own classroom. For example, this could be a piece of written work shared with another year group, a display, a blog, an exhibition, a class assembly or a performance. Across the year a range of different outcome opportunities will be used.	Context? Connection?