The Orchard Meadow Curriculum
Building on the Framework for Excellence, The United Learning Primary Curriculum has six core principles:
•Entitlement
All pupils have the right to learn what is in the United Learning curriculum, and schools have a duty to ensure that all pupils are taught the whole of it
•Coherence
Taking the National Curriculum as its starting point, our curriculum is carefully sequenced so that powerful knowledge builds term by term and year by year. We make meaningful connections within subjects and between subjects
•Mastery
We ensure that foundational knowledge, skills and concepts are secure before moving on. Pupils revisit prior learning and apply their understanding in new contexts
•Adaptability
The core content – the ‘what’ – of the curriculum is stable, but schools will bring it to life in their own local context, and teachers will adapt lessons – the ‘how’ – to meet the needs of their own classes
•Representation
All pupils see themselves in our curriculum, and our curriculum takes all pupils beyond their immediate experience
•Education with character
Our curriculum - which includes the taught subject timetable as well as spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, our co-curricular provision and the ethos and ‘hidden curriculum’ of the school – is intended to spark curiosity and to nourish both the head and the heart
Subject-specific rationales are built on these six principles.
Our Intent:
We want our pupils to have mastery over the core skills of reading, writing and mathematics as well as have opportunities to enrich and deepen their learning across a range of subjects.
Subject content is underpinned by our school values (above), which we believe passionately to be the bedrock of success for our pupils. That is why, in our curriculum we call these values our ‘key drivers’.
The Rosenshine Principles of Instruction flow through the curriculum. Regular recall, a hallmark of Rosenshine, is built into the timetable of activities and the structure of lessons so that knowledge is built progressively and coherently and takes account of pupils’ ability to retain information effectively. See our Teaching & Learning section for more details.
Implementing our vision:
‘Deepening’ opportunities are built into every unit so that pupils can develop lines of curiosity, make links and expand their understanding of more complex concepts. Each unit also contains details of how the learning is enriched through visits, and community celebrations.
Our Knowledge Organisers contain all the key information related to each unit, in handy, easy to digest summaries. These give pupils and parents a clear overview of what will be taught in that unit, how the unit links to other learning and our key drivers. These are also used by teachers to support ongoing assessment.
