Rationale and Vision
Intent
The rationale for the curriculum at William Barcroft is inspired by and reflects the values of Harbour Learning Trust – DANCE.
Delight and Joy
Ambition
Nurture
Community
Empower
We inspire greatness in every child and equip them with the academic achievements, life skills and personal attributes to lead happy, safe, successful lives.
Here at William Barcroft, we provide our pupils with a broad, rich and balanced curriculum, which promotes the spiritual, moral, mental, cultural and physical development of pupils. It is planned to enable our pupils to gain a breadth of essential knowledge, understanding and social skills; thus enabling our pupils to excel academically and be ready for the next stage of learning. In order to develop the chole child, SMSC and the teaching of British Values are woven and intertwined through the curriculum. It is built for everyone to flourish, with challenge for all and bespoke support for those who need it.
Careful curriculum design has been a huge priority and with coverage and clear progression key priorities, it is rooted in knowing more and remembering more through building on prior knowledge. It is challenging so that all pupils reach their academic potential and also provides a wide range of enrichment experiences to experience delight and joy, developing a love for learning. A wide range of sporting and creative opportunities are built in, to develop all talents and give every child a rich base on which to build at secondary school.
Furthermore, we strive to ensure that our pupils have the skills they need to be a successful member of our modern British society by learning about the following core values: Democracy, The rule of law, Individual liberty, Mutual respect and tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs. This develops a school culture of acceptance, respect and understanding.
We are a reading school and promote the love of reading through everything we do as we aim for pupils to be life-long readers. Quality texts are integral to our curriculum approach as we recognise that reading fluency enables pupils to access fully all curriculum content. Pupils have class books which provides the basis of their English work, we have class readers for our DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) sessions, weekly visits to the school library and reading interwoven through the foundation curriculum. We also recognise the importance of the core maths and scientific skills and these are rehearsed throughout the wider curriculum to deepen and apply in a wide range of contexts.
Our curriculum has been designed to be bespoke for the children of William Barcroft Junior School. We understand contextual issues well and have built a curriculum which is relevant and purposeful for our pupils , for example much work is done on ambition to develop aspirations and to open their eyes to opportunities beyond their own experiences. Cross-curricular links are exploited to show pupils how skills and knowledge can continuously be transferred from subject to subject.
Implementation
We teach with a mix of topic based learning and discrete subject lessons where this is more appropriate. Each year group has three main topics to focus on throughout the year. All topics are planned to cover age related expectations for each year group, based on the National Curriculum. In some subjects, weekly sessions have been designed to support the retention of knowledge. Our curriculum is not restricted to the classroom, we aim to use the whole school inside and out to enhance lessons and provide stimulating environments in which our children can learn. Across all subjects, lessons are sequenced to ensure that previous learning is built on, developed and deepened. Previous teaching is reviewed regularly so that pupils’ learning is reinforced and children remember what they have been taught. Teaching uses a variety of strategies including whole class, collaborative group work, paired and individual work.
We adapt our teaching to ensure that all pupils are supported and can achieve their potential. All children are different and come to us with varying experiences and needs. We cater for these different starting points and needs by ensuring we know every pupil well and adapting the curriculum they are offered.
Assessment is a vital part of our teaching cycle and ensures teachers have a firm understanding of what pupils are understanding and remembering. It draws on a range of evidence is analysed at many levels to ensure the next steps fully match what the child needs.
Subject leaders have been integral in developing their curriculum areas and monitor it’s implementation carefully. The champion their subjects and review the impact of decisions to ensure the best possible outcomes for all pupils.
Learning is shared through our termly ‘Learning Showcases’, building that learning community as we celebrate and share with parents and family members.
Impact
The academic impact of our work can clearly be seen in our outcomes, where pupils year on year exceed the national average for achieving the expected standard in reading , writing and maths combined. This year one third of our pupils reached the greater depth standard in reading, showing the impact of our reading school culture. In maths 78% of our pupils met the expected standard (5% above national average) and in writing the figure was 80%, which is 8% above the national average. The percentage of our disadvantaged pupils who met the expected standard was 13% above the local authority average.
The impact of the work that we do on personal development can be seen where pupils leave with significant additions to their cultural capital, ambitious to achieve more and with a rich base of knowledge and experiences.