Approved by the Standards and Outcomes Committee of the Trust Board, March 2020
All learners in our academies will experience a curriculum that
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- is ambitious and enjoyable through knowledge and skills developed from Foundation Stage to Post 16 and Adult provision.
- is knowledge rich, ensuring access to a wide, global cultural capital – thus maximising lifetime opportunities.
- is inclusive, nurturing and tailored towards the needs of the individual.
- is focused on developing the very best literacy, numeracy and digital skills – enabling access to the widest learning and the very best careers possible to ensure we develop global citizens.
- is enriching, ensuring all experience a rich variety of cultural, artistic and sporting activities.
- is broad in terms of coverage and (at least) encompassing the breadth of the 2014 English National Curriculum.
- celebrates the uniqueness of each educational setting in terms of localised knowledge and skills.
- develops character, personal pride and the highest moral standards.
- celebrates diversity, challenges injustice, promotes equality and encourages the creation of a better world.
- Is delivered by well-qualified, forward-thinking, skilled, passionate professionals.
Intent:
Motto: Together we will succeed
The curriculum at Jubilee Academy is designed to provide a broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all children but goes above the expectations of the National Curriculum by providing an exciting enriching curriculum. It provides opportunities for children to develop as independent, confident and successful learners, with high aspirations, who know how to make a positive contribution to their community and the wider society.
The curriculum has been designed to ensure academic success, creativity and enjoyment whilst also developing the learner as a confident, empathetic unique individual. We have a clear focus that the whole child is also about developing physical development, well-being and mental health whilst promoting a positive attitude to learning. The curriculum is supported by, a wealth of hands-on experiences and educational visits, underpinned by key outcomes.
We endeavour to build strong links with parents as we value their input as partners to enhancing their child’s education aiming to actively engage them in both their child’s learning and wider Academy life.
The curriculum is responsive to, and celebrates the diversity and utilises the skills, knowledge and cultural wealth of the community while supporting the children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, ensuring that children are well prepared for life in modern Britain.
Implementation
Reading
Children in EYFS, KS1 and some children in KS2 who need phonics support are taught using Read Write Inc, which helps them to learn how to read and write their letters and sounds. Children are taught to read using a range of phonetically decodable books. Once children’s phonic knowledge is secure they choose from a range of texts which are book banded according to the level of difficulty. Lexia is used as an additional intervention.
In KS2, Whole class reading is used to build upon this basis and encourage confident and fluent reading. Reading texts are linked to topics where possible, which also aids comprehension work and understanding of reading materials.
We track children’s progress in reading throughout school and ensure there are opportunities for them to read to adults, hear adults read and immerse themselves in quality texts through class libraries, school libraries as well as celebrating reading with our reading vending machine.
Our school, is also part of the World of Books project which has allowed our children the opportunity to further enhance their reading curriculum through diverse books which excite and engage children.
Writing
Our book-based planning sequences have been written using a wide range of literature that will engage children to be critical readers whilst becoming confident and informed writers. All National Curriculum requirements are embedded, making the grammar purposeful and there are always a mixture of shorter, longer and extended writing outcomes where the audience and purpose is clear and exciting for children!
We will always aim for our writing opportunities to be meaningful; whether short or long and that the audience is clear. Books offer this opportunity: we want children to have real reasons to write, whether to explain, persuade, inform or instruct and that where possible, this can be embedded within text or linked to a curriculum area. Writing in role using a range of genres is key to our approach as is writing a critique of the text and making comparisons – all writing skills that will support children in preparation for their time in secondary school. This sits comfortably alongside the following statement from the English national curriculum:
‘The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.’
Resourcing and coverage
Through use of The Literary Curriculum we have mapped the coverage of the entire English Programme of Study for KS1 and KS2. In many cases objectives are covered more than once and children have opportunities to apply these several times over the course of a year, as well as to consolidate prior knowledge from previous years. We believe strongly that children should be secure in applying the skills of curriculum 2014 within their writing and their reading and that this approach is fully comprehensive. Where needed, planning sequences are adapted, personalised and differentiated by the school to ensure all access arrangements can be made to support children with the requirements.
Children’s work books
Children present all English skills within their English book. This book evidences the journey of skills that the children have been learning in order to produce a piece of extended writing. This extended writing will then be evidenced in the ‘Journey of a Writer’ book. The ‘Journey of a Writer’ book will follow the child through school to show the progress and journey of writing the child has been on.
Handwriting is taught at daily following the Handwriting Policy and using the Nelson handwriting scheme.
Spelling is also taught daily from Year 1using the Get Spelling programme.
Maths
Years R-6 use the White Rose Maths Hub schemes of learning as their medium-term planning documents. These schemes provide teachers with exemplification for maths objectives and are broken down into fluency, reasoning and problem solving, key aims of the National Curriculum. They support a mastery approach to teaching and learning and have number at their heart. They ensure teachers stay in the required key stage and support the ideal of depth before breadth. They support pupils working together as a whole group and provide plenty of time to build reasoning and problem- solving elements into the curriculum.
We use the WRM workbooks alongside the child’s calculations book which evidence morning arithmetic work, flashbacks on previous learning, all working out and extended pieces for children.
Wider Curriculum
At Jubilee Academy, we use the ‘Cornerstones’ programme alongside Grammarsaurus to support the delivery of our teaching and learning of the wider curriculum. Our ‘Jubilee Journey is well-planned, coherent curriculum which focuses on developing the children’s wide range of knowledge, skills and understanding in a clear progressive way.
We aim to have high expectations of our children to work hard and demonstrate positive learning behaviours to maximise their individual learning potential. SMSC and Cultural Capital are ‘golden threads’ which we aim to include at the heart of the curriculum we deliver, to closely meet the needs of our pupils.
We offer a wide range of enrichment opportunities and educational visits which are carefully chosen and planned to deepen understanding and to enhance hands-on, exciting and engaging learning experiences. Children from across the school have access to a wide range of extra-curricular activities in both sport, music and the creative and performing arts. Continuing Professional Development for all staff is currently a priority to ensure they have the necessary skills and knowledge to deliver the highest standards across the entire curriculum. Subject Leaders are becoming increasingly expert in playing a pivotal role in both the design and delivery of their subject area; ensuring a clear progression of both skills and knowledge across all year groups. They aim to articulate how learning is re-visited and developed year-on-year, to ensure a real depth of learning right across the school.
Some subjects (Music, Computing, French, PSHE, PE and RE) are taught outside of these projects but teachers make cross curricular links with these where possible. Class timetables are organised so that there is adequate time given to all curriculum subjects.
All other curriculum subjects are presented in their curriculum books or in the case of RE and PSHE a class floor book. History, Geography, Science, French, Art and Design will be presented in journey books that will stay with children through school to show the progression of skills and knowledge that has been learnt.
Schemes of Work:
Literacy Curriculum
White Rose
Cornerstones
Purple Mash
Jigsaw
Grammarsaurus
Nelson Handwriting
Read Write Inc
