Curriculum

The Curriculum

At Balby Central Priamry Academy, we are committed to ensuring that our curriculum offer is inclusive, engaging and cohesive. The full range of core and foundation subjects is carefully mapped so that all children end their time with us having mastered a wide range of concepts and skills and gained the knowledge that gives them a love of learning, prepares them for their next steps in learning and develops an understanding of the world in which they live.

Within our Early Years Foundation Stage our curriculum delivers the seven areas of learning and development and is based on close observation of children’s needs, interests and stages of development. Children are provided with stimulating, challenging and supportive learning and play opportunities based on the areas of learning. In partnership with families, we promote the learning and development of our children to ensure they are ready for the next stage of education.

Our mathematics teaching follows the national curriculum using the long and medium-term planning provided by Maths Mastery. Teaching is structured in a way that enables children to master mathematical concepts: teachers use a CPA (concrete, pictorial, abstract) sequence and ensure that children have opportunities to develop fluency, reasoning and problem solving. Our teaching of English includes phonics, guided reading, novel study, writing, handwriting and EGPS (English grammar, punctuation and spelling). Writing is taught with a rich stimulus or context, often from the wider curriculum, which allows children to write for purpose. Reading is explicitly taught and closely monitored to ensure that children read widely and successfully. Opportunities to develop reading across the curriculum are exploited.

We have approached Science, History and Geography as stand alone subjects. This allows us to explicitly teach children key knoweldge as well as providing a broad and balanced curriculum to all out childrne.. As children progress throughout their primary years, relevant factual and conceptual links are made between themes. Please see individual subject documents for further information. PE, , RE, computing, music, MFL and PSHE are taught discretely unless links can be made to the creative theme. Links between subjects are made where they promote understanding. Further discrete teaching of some subjects is also undertaken to ensure full coverage of the curriculum.

Underpinning each theme or unit of work is a core body of knowledge that is revised and revisited in order to ensure that learning is committed to long-term memory. This knowledge empowers children: it gives them a sense of being knowledgeable, allows them to mediate social and cultural references, builds on their understanding of the world and provides valuable content for writing and reading across the curriculum.

Spiritual, moral, social and cultural development as well as modern British values are embedded into the curriculum and are consistently revisited and consolidated particularly through our Balby Central Primary Academy Values

Essentials Curriculum

Our curriculum aims to:

Provide a broad and balanced education for all pupils
Enable pupils to develop knowledge, understand concepts and acquire skills, and be able to choose and apply these in relevant situations
Support pupils’ spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development
Support pupils’ physical development and responsibility for their own health, and enable them to be active
Promote a positive attitude towards learning
Ensure equal access to learning, with high expectations for every pupil and appropriate levels of challenge and support
Promote the learning and development of our youngest children and ensure they are ready for Key Stage 1
Ensure that as children leave the school in Year 6 they are ‘secondary ready’

These subjects are not intended to be a complete curriculum and other aspects may include personal and social education as well as health education and swimming.

The Curriculum Drivers

The drivers are carefully tailored to the needs of the community we serve and the context in which we work. With these drivers at the forefront, we are able to ensure our curriculum is carefully planned to meet the needs of our children, making certain that they achieve in the fullest sense.

Possibilities

We want our children to aspire to do new things and encounter new opportunities. We aim to broaden the children’s horizons, developing their knowledge of the world of work and encouraging children to want to know more about the unknown.

Community

We want our children to develop a sense of pride in themselves and respect for others. We believe they need to have a highly developed emotional literacy and excellent manners in order to experience positive relationships. We believe in the power of the school community to change and enhance lives.

Communication

We want our children to become eloquent orators, speaking with confidence and fluency in a variety of situations. We believe that helping our children find their voice is as important as them becoming avid readers or great writers and will work to broaden vocabulary and encourage talk in all areas of learning.

Initiative

It is vital that we nurture the natural curiosity of our children, enabling them to become independent in thought and action and encouraging them to imagine, enquire and become increasingly enterprising. We will give children opportunities to think critically, by solving problems and making choices

Environment

We believe our children need to know about and understand the world that is beyond their immediate doorstep. They need opportunities to experience the richness of its diversity and show they care about its management and sustainability.

Adventure

We are passionate about the health of our children. We want our children to lift their eyes from the screen to be excited by the real world, engaging in rich experiences to develop imagination. We will use competition to develop confidence and allow them to manage real risks by having fun and a little danger.