Our School Curriculum
What will my child learn in school?
At Viewley Hill we believe our curriculum promotes high our high expectations for all pupils in learning and personal development. It is founded in the 2014 national curriculum, which you can access via this link:
Our curriculum coverage and content is carefully sequenced from the children’s first experiences of Early Years to ensure it provides all that our children need to be ready for the next stage of their education, both as learners and as confident and happy individuals.
Our curriculum is designed to start where the children are and from there to help them make links to prior and future learning, because this helps their learning to be meaningful and memorable. Children’s wider curriculum learning engages them in enquiry questions which build to deepen learning across a unit or half term.
At Viewley Hill Academy, we support our pupils in developing greater cultural and social capital by providing them with learning and experiences which help them to become knowledgeable about the world around them, including ensuring diversity is at the heart of our wider curriculum offer. Lessons incorporate retrieval practice to reflect and revisit prior learning, before engaging children in their new learning, which expands their knowledge and understanding.
Our Aims
Our Curriculum has been created around 3 key aims:
- Breadth of study – a range of studies across the National Curriculum, giving children a wide and varied general knowledge alongside developing key skills in the core areas of Reading, Writing and Maths.
- Depth of study – conceptual knowledge, disciplinary skills and meaningful links made throughout their learning in school.
- Cultural Capital – experiences and opportunities to learn about the wider world in order to grow the next generation of British citizens.
These 3 broad aims help children build a secure understanding of the world around them, transfer their knowledge and remember key information. We also invest in our children’s positive self-esteem and relationship-building through our comprehensive Personal Development and PSHE curricula, which are an integral part of our whole curriculum offer. In this way, we aim for our children to develop a deep sense of belonging within our school family and our community.
Our Approach
Reading, Writing and Maths are the keystones of our curriculum. We take every opportunity to encourage Reading throughout the curriculum; to maintain it as a whole school priority and to encourage parental engagement in reading at home. Skills in these core areas are crucial in enabling children to be successful in life. Additionally, we ensure that our pupils are given frequent opportunities to develop independent, critical thinking skills and to have a voice in their experience of school.
The wider curriculum offer is delivered through carefully sequenced units of substantive knowledge, underpinned by key concepts and supported through acquiring disciplinary skills. Enquiry questions provoke thought and discussion, leading to deeper learning through children’s own curiosity. We recognise that being fluent in a wider vocabulary is key in supporting our pupils to become more accomplished in expressing themselves knowledgeably. For this reason, key vocabulary is deliberately planned into each unit and each retrieval practice to facilitate this discussion. Learning consistently builds on prior knowledge and in this way, we aim for learning to have shape and context, meaning children will know more, remember more and be able to do more as they progress through school.
Please use this link to view our school curriculum for Key Stage 1 and 2.
Withdrawal
Children cannot be withdrawn from studying the National Curriculum. However, there are some exceptions to this in religious and relationships education, which can be discussed on an individual basis on request.
