CURRICULUM

INTENT

Haslington Primary Academy and Nursery follows the National Curriculum expectations, ensuring that all children access a common body of learning that they are entitled to, regardless of social background, culture, race, gender, differences in ability and disabilities. We have developed a curriculum that encourages independent thinking, creativity and fluency; using knowledge from previous learning and first-hand experiences; building on these foundations so that children can contribute positively and with confidence to an ever-changing world.

Haslington Primary Academy and Nursery is committed to providing an outstanding curriculum focused on developing the ‘whole’ child. Our curriculum embraces the core values through the help of using the character building curriculum scheme of work; which is a creative, challenging and an exciting learning journey. The experiences in CBC are based around RESPECT – Resilience, Empathy, Self-awareness, Passion, Excellence, Communication and Teamwork – By making the curriculum memorable and purposeful; it provides opportunities for our children to retrieve knowledge and hold onto these memories and experiences for life.

 

 

 

WE WANT OUR CHILDREN TO BE:

  • Successful learners, who enjoy learning experiences, retaining knowledge and understanding to achieve and build life skills
    Confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives
  • Responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society
  • Confident to learn spiritually, morally, socially and culturally
  • children who have strategies to enable them to be more active, independent learners
  • Resilience and the ability to independently transfer and interchange knowledge and skills
  • Immersion in rich, engaging topics to enable practice, repetition and reinforcement of skills and knowledge to be fluent in many different, often complex concepts

Haslington Primary Academy and Nursery is committed to providing an outstanding curriculum that gives learning a purpose within well-planned sequences of lessons. Our school are determined to develop the children’s ‘cultural capital’ and continually strives to foster new skills, experiences, understand British Values, diversity and mental health & well-being whilst realising individual talents and potential.

Haslington Primary school and Nursery promotes continuity and coherence, allowing children to move smoothly between phases of education and schools by providing a foundation for lifelong learning.

IMPLEMENTATION

Creativity is encouraged, nurtured and developed across our full range of subjects at Haslington. Each child in Y5 is taught percussion by talented and highly qualified music teachers from Love Music Trust.

We also offer musical instrument lessons in school for those who want to develop their skills in these areas. They are also taught PE and sport by an inclusive, qualified sports coach who believes in all children regardless of ability and again, offers clubs to enrich the curriculum.

A range of clubs are offered after school including – art, cookery, P.E, choir, computing, reading and craft clubs. These change throughout the year and the sports coach works with different groups of children at lunchtime to prepare them for competitions.

The progression of skills for each year group is the driving force for our curriculum. The classes teach through a topic – this is the vehicle for learning and carefully planned through a sequence of lessons that incorporate these key skills ensuring that there is progression in each year group throughout the school, revisiting and building on previous learning. These skills are carefully monitored throughout the curriculum by the subject leads who discuss planning and progression with the staff during meetings and after observations or book scrutinies.

A carefully chosen book is used in the English lessons and the whole class guiding reading – this enables our curriculum at Haslington to be cohesive and purposeful. Misconceptions are addressed regularly in all subjects; making the learning more relevant and enjoyable for the pupils – they make connections and link elements of learning together.

At times, lessons have to be taught discreetly; however, where possible most lessons are interlinked – this allows teaching to build on prior learning constantly reinforcing key skills.
Leadership of the curriculum is led by the senior management team. Members of staff lead individual subjects; however, we take a collaborative approach to subject leadership and equal emphasis is placed on foundation subjects as well as core subject areas.

All subject leads are allocated time out of the class and during staff meetings to fulfill their leadership responsibilities. This includes monitoring of books and planning, CPD preparations, pupil voice interviews and liaising with and reporting to governors. Each subject lead also has the support and challenge of a link governor, who again, has been carefully matched with their subject taking into account their interests, knowledge and passion. The role of the link Governor involves:

  • Making and attending pre-arranged visits to the school, with a clear focus following the Governor monitoring cycle.
  • Reporting to the governing board about the subject – achievement and progress.
  • Supporting and challenging the subject lead who is responsible for the particular area/subject.
  • Discussing initiatives and CPD training needs.
  • Ensuring the school has relevant policies in place where applicable.
  • Monitoring the implementation of the school’s strategy in the specialist area.

At Haslington Primary Academy and Nursery it is our aim to provide equal opportunities to all children regardless of race, disability, gender or ethnic background. The curriculum is differentiated to meet the needs of the individual child to ensure lessons are fully inclusive. The differentiation may be by outcome, task, expectation, support or resources. staff are sensitive to the individual needs of children by ensuring that activities are accessible to everyone.

IMPACT

Assessment: The children are assessed at the beginning and the end of the topic to discover their learning and reflect on learning.

The core subjects are assessed using formal assessments each term – the assessments are described in more detail within the individual subject drop-down menu.
The findings are:

  • The children enjoy their learning more
  • Teachers work SMARTER by making links across the curriculum having more opportunities to address misconceptions and reinforce key skills.
  • The children are more positive about their learning and enjoy discussing what they are learning
  • Planning is more purposeful and staff are held accountable for monitoring the progression of skills in each subject
  • The staff are constantly striving to improve the curriculum content; meeting the children’s needs and making the children’s learning more purposeful.