Hill View Junior Academy

Our Curriculum

Curriculum Drivers 2021 - 2022

In this school staff gave these as the drivers for creating a new curriculum.

The curriculum must be:-

• Engaging
• Inspiring
• Thought provoking
• Interesting
• Enjoyable
• Relevant to children’s lives today
• Challenging
• Creative
• Broad/ balanced

Working together staff identified elements that were central to the school ethos. As a school we believed that it is our responsibility not only to cover the National Curriculum but also to develop the skills and values that would allow our children to succeed in life. We wished to create a curriculum that is specifically for our children in our school.

Intent

At Hill View Junior Academy, we believe that not only is it our responsibility to cover the National Curriculum but also to develop the skills and values that would allow our children to succeed in life whatever their ability.

The curriculum that we have developed is specifically for our children in our school and linked to our overall vision that whatever we do we do what is best for the children

We recognise children’s prior learning, provide first hand learning experiences, allow the children to develop interpersonal skills, build resilience and become creative, critical thinkers.

Every child is recognised as a unique individual. The ability to learn is underpinned by the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, concepts and values. We provide enhancement opportunities to engage and enhance learning and believe that the time spent in school should be a happy, investigative and enquiring time in our lives where there are no limits to curiosity and there is a thirst for new experiences and knowledge.

Community involvement is an essential part of our curriculum as we celebrate local traditions, learning new skills to enable the children to take an active role in events throughout the year. Children leave our school with a sense of belonging to the community in which they live where they have the confidence and skills to make decisions, self-evaluate, make connections and become lifelong learners.

Aims

• Help our pupils to become independent, enquiring and collaborative learners.
• Develop happy, motivated life-long learners equipped for the future.
• Nurture healthy, caring and respectful individuals.
• Create thinking individuals, with values, who make a positive contribution to the world.
• Provide challenge, enabling children to reach their full potential.
• Be inclusive and diverse allowing a range of opportunities for children to find their element.
• Help children develop a love of challenge and create an environment where children embrace risk.

Our 4 Curriculum drivers are:

Possibilities

Our curriculum will;

1. Inspire and engage the children so they can aspire to achieve their dreams whether that be academic achievements, sporting ability or in the creative art
2. Help us to challenge ourselves, each other and to push boundarie

Enquiry

Our curriculum will allow our children to;

1. Be inquisitive and to question
2. To be resourceful and independent in their learning
3. Create and develop opportunities to develop thinking for themselves and the application of skills learnt
4. Develop collaborative learning
5. Take risks
6. Require perseverance and nurture a problem solving ethos

Understand the world

Our curriculum will;

1. Help our children understand the world they live in
2. On a local, national and international level by
3. Participating in our local community
4. Relating their learning to real life contexts including the use of modern technology
5. Discovering how and why things work
6. Developing environmental awareness

Community

Our curriculum will;

1.  Instil in our children a sense of pride in the local community and an understanding of its heritage.
2. Provide opportunities to make a positive contribution to the wider school community.
3. Develop and engage in links with the local community.

Implementation

Our Curriculum design is based on key areas of research;

• Development of memory – Learning is most effective with spaced repetition and frequent and regular retrieval of learned content, to increase both storage and retrieval strength. 

• Development of vocabulary/Oracy skills –We are in the process of linking the clear subject overviews to key vocabulary which should be mastered by the end of the year.

• Development of transferrable skills – Our curriculum demonstrates a clear and progressive transfer of skills, along with a balanced knowledge base to ensure that pupils are aware of the explicit links between subjects and are able to use skills that they have learnt across other curriculum areas.

• Learning experiences - We know that giving our pupils the opportunity to try new things and develop new skills can be hugely beneficial. It can help our children to grow in confidence, expand their understanding of the world around them, or introduce a hobby or passion that could last for years to come. We offer a wide range of educational visits, residentials, camps, workshops throughout the year to link with key learning areas. We also have a range of visitors in school to further support our curriculum.

• Outdoor Learning - We encourage children to be responsible for and respect the local community and environment giving them a sense of belonging and ownership of the place in which they live. We explore the uses of the local area, integrating subjects so that meaningful activities can be planned and delivered effectively and regularly

Each subject has its own policy.

Impact

The impact of our curriculum is that by the end of each learning journey, the vast majority of pupils have sustained mastery of the content, that is, they show a good recall and fluency. This means that they are able to use what they have learnt across other learning areas. Some pupils will have a greater depth of understanding. We track carefully to ensure pupils are on track to reach the expectations. We also believe that pupil voice is a very useful tool for assessment. By asking pupils questions such as what they enjoyed and what they learnt, we are able to view the impact of their learning experiences. End of Key Stage data is available to view on the results page of our website.

We teach the curriculum subjects discretely, and make links where appropriate. For example a science lesson may include aspects of Maths and English, a History lesson may have Geography and Art links.

We are in the process of developing the use of Knowledge Organisers as a tool to aid the development of long term memory. Currently Knowledge organisers are available for Science. To download copy of one of these organisers please click on the curriculum title in the framework below.

Whole School Curriculum Framework

 Please click on the term below to see what the children are working on each term.

2021 - 2022 Curriculum Maps

To find out more about our curriculum you can visit the following sites:

www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum

www.nationalcurriculum.co.uk