Whilst we continue to use the National Curriculum as our framework, we will not limit our curriculum content to the knowledge, skills and concepts covered within it. Our curriculum intention is to ensure every pupil understands there is no limit to their potential, therefore we are raising our expectations by increasing the depth and breadth of children’s understanding. We are reviewing each subject and identifying the essential knowledge that we feel is the children’s entitlement – and then deciding how best to teach it and how best to assess the impact of it. We aim to expose the children to content, which is deeper and more sophisticated than we have taught before.

To help meet this challenge, we are producing ‘Knowledge Organisers’ which are ‘go-to’ documents outlining the essential knowledge that teachers will be covering across a unit of work; including dates, key vocabulary, definitions and other contextual or technical information. These ‘Knowledge Organisers’ will be shared with pupils, parents and carers – with the aim that everyone knows exactly what is being taught, and what the children need to learn.

Our curriculum was designed collaboratively in year groups, key stages and with the whole school. Time was given to discussion on the delivery of the objectives in a creative, theme led way. A curriculum event was delivered by Poole Schools to enable us to transition to the new National Curriculum, which we took a lead role in delivering. Each theme we have chosen has a core subject focus, where objectives are taught and assessed to aid reporting at the end of the year. The other curriculum areas link to the focus and are taught in a cross curricular way where it is possible. These themes are reviewed annually to meet the needs of the cohorts of children and to link learning to current events. To enable children to meet their potential we ensure the curriculum develops engagement in the foundation subjects with the capacity to further extend their learning. We give children the opportunity to deepen their understanding through questioning and challenge tasks and link to our school values wherever possible.