Hill View Junior Academy Curriculum Statement
Intent
At Hill View Junior Academy, we understand our pupils, families and community, and have used this knowledge to craft a curriculum which meets the needs of all of our pupils. We believe that education is a lifelong journey, and our intent is to create a curriculum that ignites a passion for learning, nurtures well-rounded holistic development, and prepares our pupils for a successful future. Through the efficient implementation of our curriculum, our aim is to equip our pupils with the tools to become the best version of themselves: academically, socially, and emotionally. We aim to empower our pupils to become responsible, compassionate, and socially aware members of society and to recognise their own sense of belonging and place in the world. At Hill View Junior Academy, we have developed four curriculum drivers and these underpin all curriculum areas, to ensure our children leave us fully prepared for their next steps in our ever-changing world of education and work. Our curriculum drivers are:
Gratitude – we aim to offer a curriculum that puts the holistic needs of the child at the forefront of what we do, and their appreciation of their place in the world is key to this. “Gratitude is like a secret ingredient to happiness, or a superpower to foster positive feelings,” says paediatrician Hina Talib.
Resilience – we value the personal growth of our pupils and aim to nurture their character so that they become responsible, compassionate, and resilient individuals. Our curriculum encourages personal reflection, promotes mutual respect, and emphasises the importance of positive relationships within our school community.
Opportunity – we aim to offer a well-sequenced curriculum, rich with ambition. Our high expectations for all pupils form the golden thread, to enable them to achieve well and maximise their possibilities. Our curriculum celebrates cultural diversity and encourages our pupils to be global citizens. We provide opportunities for students to explore different cultures, traditions, and perspectives, fostering their understanding and empathy towards others.
Wonder – we aim to ignite imaginations, excite, engage and enthuse a generation of independent, innovative and creative thinkers and opportunities for this are planned and exploited.
At Hill View Junior Academy, our overarching vision is that, by balancing the importance of academic development and personal development, we are using our GROW curriculum drivers to give our children:
‘Roots to grow and wings to fly’
Implementation
Hill View Junior Academy is an inclusive school, intent on ensuring that all of our pupils reach their potential in a range of ways. Our three simple school values of ‘Be Safe, Be Kind, Be Honest’ encompass, for us, the core principles of nurturing responsible citizens of the world and these, along with a curriculum built on high expectations, are what enable our children to become the best version of themselves.
We have designed our curriculum to ensure children have a robust understanding of the basic skills across the core subjects of reading, writing and mathematics, in order to provide them with firm foundations for all curriculum areas and prepare them for their next steps.
We follow the National Curriculum but ensure that this is enhanced further with enrichment opportunities wherever possible to ensure full coverage, along with an enjoyment for learning. Subjects are taught discretely ensuring the development of individual subject knowledge and skills. Where relevant, links are made across subject areas to provide a holistic approach and enable pupils to make conceptual links and apply learnt knowledge and skills.
Each subject area is led by a designated subject lead teacher, who leads on the continuous improvement of their subject throughout the school, including the development of a well-planned progressive curriculum, as well as supporting staff when required.
Our curriculum comes to life as a result of carefully planned lessons and activities, delivered by our dedicated teaching staff.
We recognise that every child is unique and has different interests, abilities, and learning styles and our teachers plan their lessons to accommodate these individual differences, providing a range of activities and resources that cater to diverse needs and abilities. Adaptive teaching ensures that all pupils are appropriately challenged and supported to reach their full potential.
We believe in providing a holistic education and offer a wide range of enrichment opportunities to complement our curriculum. These include educational visits, guest speakers, workshops, and extracurricular clubs. These experiences extend students' learning beyond the classroom, broaden their horizons, and help them develop new skills and interests. We have developed a range of residential visits for the children to enjoy and to provide them with learning opportunities beyond the classroom: Year 4 visit Moor House Activity Centre and Year 6 visit Derwent Hill Outdoor Education Centre – both empowering children to develop confidence, resilience, personal and social skills and teamwork. They widen their horizons, develop their character, and take away a reservoir of experience from which they draw back at home and school. In Year 5, children have the option to visit London, with a focus on building their cultural capital and providing a rich variety of activities, from visiting the Natural History Museum, to seeing our capital’s most famous landmarks, to seeing a West End theatre show.
Impact
The impact of our curriculum can be seen through the whole-school achievements of our pupils. We continuously evaluate and monitor our curriculum to ensure that it is meeting the needs of our children and providing them with a high-quality education. Pupils leave us with a firm foundational knowledge across all subject areas and are able to make links and apply their skills across the curriculum. They are confident readers, writers, orators and mathematicians and have developed their interests in various subject areas.
We value the well-being of our pupils above all else and aim to create a supportive and nurturing environment. By promoting positive mental health and emotional resilience, we enable our pupils to manage challenges effectively and thrive both academically and personally, always ready for their next steps and for their longer-term futures.
At Hill View Junior Academy, our children personify our 3 core values: ‘Be Safe, Be Kind, Be Honest’ and they are wonderful ambassadors for our school. We know that when they go on to their next step, they have amassed a considerable toolkit of social, moral, emotional and cultural experiences to prepare them for the path ahead. |