Intent for Curriculum

With every child included and enabled our unique curriculum demonstrates year after year that every child can and every child will grow an additional confidence and belief in their agency as they learn to communicate at the furthest extremes of their capacities ready for a life of wholehearted and dynamic engagement with an ever-changing world.   SDP 2022-2024

The Gateways to Learning, Inclusion & Participation

We believe that highly effective listening, thinking, talking, reading and writing are our children's gateways to learning and their full and active participation in the world around them now and in their adult lives.

'Developing a love of reading can be more important for a child’s educational success than their family’s socio-economic background.' Organisation for Economic and Co-operative Development

Where Learning is Linear

In the areas of the curriculum where learning is particularly linear (mathematics and phonics) the children work with the learning blocks sequenced in the most effective order.

For our phonics and mathematics curricula we use carefully sequenced curriculum resources:

• Phonics - SoundsWrite
• Mathematics - Maths No Problem & White Rose.

Teachers at Freshford use these as a high-quality resource baseline upon which to build and improvise as necessary and appropriate in response to in lesson feedback and formative assessment.

 A Curriculum in Big Ideas

Where learning is not fundamentally a linear a linear process.

We are splitting the curriculum areas where learning is not fundamentally a linear process into Big Ideas. We are using the Big ideas of the adult academic disciplines. These are the big concepts that our children will need to be able to work with as adults.

If our teachers know and are always focussed on the Big Ideas in life, culture, our world and our universe towards which the children’s learning is heading they can make good decisions to take the children’s knowledge and understanding forward.  

The Headteacher thanks The National STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics) Centre at York University for their 8 day residential course on Designing an Outstanding Science Curriculum for Primary Schools for inspiration in this direction and encouragement not to attempt to cover everything but instead to focus on the main things and to do them very well.

‘The more meaningful the context the more likely the learning is to be remembered.’ Visible Learning Feedback by John Hattie & Shirley Clarke  2019