What we teach
WHAT WE TEACH?
The whole school curriculum is knowledge-rich, ambitious and provides all pupils, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those on the SEND register, the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. Our curriculum, the Primary Knowledge Curriculum, aligns with the national curriculum. It has been coherently planned and is well-sequenced, laying the foundations of knowledge in EYFS and building on this throughout the primary years. The broad curriculum is followed consistently by all pupils.
A knowledge-rich curriculum exposes children to ambitious content that has been highly specified and well-sequenced, leaving nothing to chance. A knowledge-rich curriculum ensures that each precious moment will support children in acquiring the knowledge, skills and cultural capital that they will need to become well-educated citizens of the future. Every historical figure encountered, philosophical idea grappled with, and scientific concept applied, fits neatly into a scheme of learning that holds a sense of purpose and develops logically from lesson to lesson, unit to unit and year to year. Through utilising cognitive science, and the psychology of learning, memory and schemata, a knowledge-rich curriculum is designed to ensure that the knowledge is taught to be remembered. At its core, a knowledge-rich curriculum enables all children, regardless of socio-economic background, to be provided with the opportunities to succeed in later life. Our curriculum has taken all the evidence and research into account to ensure that it incorporates the principles of spaced retrieval, formative “low-stakes” quizzing and plenty of practice to develop knowledge fluency that pursue mastery.
THE PRINCIPLES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE-RICH CURRICULUM
- Knowledge is valued and specified
- Knowledge is well sequenced
- Knowledge is taught to be remembered
The content in our curriculum has been carefully chosen by subject experts and has been sequenced in a meaningful way that enables all children to make connections and progress from unit to unit, term to term and year to year. We recognise and value each subject and teach them discretely, ensuring that our children develop a deep understanding and love of each distinct discipline. Where appropriate, links are made across disciplines to enable children to make meaningful connections. Our curriculum includes local history, geography, and other locally relevant subject content.
WHY TEACH KNOWLEDGE?
Please watch the video below that explains why we think a knowledge curriculum is powerful:
INTENDED CURRICULUM
Our intended curriculum can be found in these documents:
- Our whole school curriculum overview outlines the units covered in each subject across the year.
- Subject curriculum maps: detail exactly what we cover in each subject, which can be found under each subject area in the next section.
- Subject rationales: explain the reasoning behind how our curriculum was developed for each subject, which can be found under each subject area in the next section.
- Unit rationales: for subjects that require more substantial teacher knowledge, we have created unit rationales that outlines the substantive knowledge, concepts and disciplinary knowledge taught, and how each unit fits in with the bigger curriculum picture, examples which can be found in history, geography and science.
- The knowledge goals (KG) and assessment goals set out in our planning documents for each subject: KGs explain what we plan for all children to know by the end of each lesson, and the assessment shows what we expect children to commit to long term memory by the end of the unit.
SUBJECT BASED CURRICULUM
We specify exactly what we teach in each subject. Please click on the subject below to learn more about our subject based curriculum.