Subjects

In our non core curriculum we teach individual subject disciplines following the English National Curriculum, such as; Science, History, Geography, Art, Design Technology, R.E, PSHE and Modern Foreign Languages.  We teach each subject separately so that pupils have a very clear understanding of what is important about each subject and that their knowledge and skills progress systematically over time in each subject area.  We engage with subject experts and subject associations, in addition to capitalising on the expertise of our subject leaders within our school.  Our shared vision and aim is always striving for our curriculum to be the very best that it can be.

 Building Connections with our Golden Threads

There are 4 key drivers within our curriculum which encapsulate an understanding of what we aim to instil in all of our pupils. We have named these drivers ‘Golden Threads’ to support coherence.  These drivers  give an interweaving focus on similar concepts and contexts throughout and across each year group and programme of study.  We aim for new knowledge to become connected by building on foundations of existing understanding.

The 4 Golden Threads are:

Knowledge – To know more, remember more and be able to do more.

Legacy – To study the footprints left behind after a group of people, time in history or a person’s impact on different societies.

Global Citizenship – To understand our role and responsibility to each other and to our world.

Childhood, Home and Family – What different childhoods,  homes and families are like and how they have changed over time, making connections through comparisons to our ‘home’ – the local environment of the Lickey Hills.

Our curriculum embraces research from cognitive science, memory and the power of retrieval practice.  Teachers build in spaced retrieval practice, formative low-stakes testing and plenty of repeated practice for automaticity and fluency. The curriculum aims to optimise opportunities for building secure and cohesive links, for example; a timeline for historical events and musical achievements, a sense of historical and geographical place in the Lickey Hills area and a framework for understanding cultural diversity in our wider multicultural society.

Our curriculum also includes the ‘hidden curriculum’, or what the children learn from the way they are treated and expected to behave as a result of our values and nurturing ethos. We teach children how to grow into positive, responsible people, who can work and cooperate with others.