Our Curriculum Rationale and Aims
Pupils behave well and are polite. They are engaged in their lessons. This is because they are interested in their learning.
Ofsted, 2022
Curriculum Intent and Implementation
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Orchard serves a disadvantaged community where opportunities and foundations for children to achieve well are limited. Children’s knowledge, understanding and experience of the wider world is limited. Our children also join us with very low starting points, therefore we must ensure that literacy, numeracy and oracy skills are a priority.
At Orchard our mission is to ‘Empower all to be the best that they can be’.
To ensure we do this we will provide children with a highly-inclusive and inspiring curriculum; offer the very best resources and facilities; put the very best practitioners in front of them, provide an exceptional personal development offer and create a culture where children feel safe and secure. This helps children to make rapid progress in each key stage and ensure that they achieve well, no matter their starting point or barrier. |
Staff will contribute to the high performing environment and look beyond the contextual barriers so that each child is empowered to learn, achieve and thrive.
Our curriculum must be built on solid reading, writing, oracy and maths foundations from the moment they join EYFS in order for children to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence to access the whole curriculum offer.
Lessons are structured to ensure high-quality instruction, precise modelling, impactful questioning and independent practice and feedback mechanisms are embedded in all lessons.
The curriculum is meticulously planned to ensure that knowledge and vocabulary is consistent and builds as children move through school. Purposeful links are made across subjects in order for deep-rooted understanding to be achieved.
Teacher will provide high-quality enrichment linked to curriculum and that have a clear purpose and objective to ensure that learning is enhanced as well as providing ‘WOW’ moments for the children. |
Curriculum Vision
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Preparing for the Future
Ensure that every learning opportunity provides children with the experiences which prepare them for life after education. Key foci for the curriculum opportunities are:
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Global citizenship
Children will be taught about our world in the past, present and the future.
This will enable children to understand our world as it was and how it has led to the world that we live in today.
Children will learn about the world beyond their own and broaden their limited horizons. Only then can children make informed decisions about the choices that they make and about how they access and use the world around them. |
Accessible for all
Orchard serves a highly deprived area where the number of pupil premium children and those with SEND is significantly above the national average.
Our staff will ensure that all children confidently access the curriculum, no matter their starting point or barrier.
Staff will use bespoke teaching methods and systems to provide a level playing field by removing barriers to learning.
Through high-expectations, our highly-skilled staff and curriculum gives every child the opportunity to access and thrive. |
Breadth and Depth
Our curriculum is structured to meet all of the requirements and objectives within the National Curriculum. Our children have access to all subjects through a curriculum which is precisely sequenced and builds on prior knowledge. In an area of high deprivation, it is vital that our children experience a range of learning opportunities both in and out of the classroom. We believe that learning through experiences and through opportunities that may otherwise be inaccessible, along with increased confidence in basic skills, will open doors for our children. Helping them understand, appreciate and access the wider world through our curriculum underpins our whole curriculum approach.
Social and Emotional Development
Until our children are socially, emotionally and mentally ready to learn, the quality of educational outcomes are negatively affected. We place a huge emphasis on ensuring our children feel safe enough and regulated to take chances, try new things and be in a position to make rapid progress academically.
Through a strong commitment to our pastoral offer and a well embedded PSHE/SMSC/RSE curriculum, we are able to meet the specific needs of our children and work through their issues and concerns to ensure they are ready to learn. We are committed to child and staff mental health and wellbeing and believe that this is a barrier that we must help to remove for our children. This year we have fully implemented the MyHappyMind scheme of work for PSHE, which is backed by the NHS and is a mental health and wellbeing for schools programme that's grounded in science and research to help create positive wellbeing.
Curriculum Implementation
Our core subjects of Reading, Writing and Mathematics are taught everyday. Our foundation curriculum has been designed to follow a journey through a topic where possible with curriculum links being made across carefully sequenced subjects. High-quality texts have been chosen to broaden children's understanding of topics and subject areas. Our curriculum is designed around our school values of: Respect, Responsibility and Aspiration, our curriculum drivers of STEM, Legacy and Integrity, as well as British Values.
Reading is the curriculum driver that runs through and interlinks the whole curriculum. Our aim is to expose children to books and authors that they would not usually access or 'that they could purchase in a supermarket book isle'. Our books meet the needs of our children, inspire a love for reading and cover many aspects of wider-world issues such as : race, religion, LBTGQ+ and disability.
Teachers deliver their lessons both inside and outside of the classroom. As we are an active school, staff are encouraged to teach outside of the classroom and use the outdoors whenever the learning lends itself to this. Lessons are also taught within our immersion room, which gives children real-life and interactive experiences through sight, sounds and scents.
We also understand that our hidden curriculum is vital for the community that we serve. Through our school values of: Respect, Responsibility and Aspiration and our curriculum drivers of: STEM, Legacy and Integrity, as well as British Values, we have created an ethos of acceptance and curiosity of those who are different to us and the wider-world. Our theme-days, unity afternoons and carefully planned personal development opportunities creates a curriculum that enables children to develop into well-rounded individuals.
Here is an example of the knowledge that our children learn and examples of the fantastic work that they produce on our classroom and corridor working walls below.
If you require any further information regarding our curriculum please speak to your child's class teacher.
Alternatively you can contact the school office on:
Telephone | 01924 469578
Email | office@orchardprimaryacademy.org.uk