Our Curriculum

 Our Curriculum Design

• Our curriculum naturally integrates our school vision and values:

  At West Newcastle Academy, our purpose is to nurture curious and creative minds, strong characters, independent thinkers and loving humans in a culture that allows mistakes, failure and experimentation whilst consciously promoting belonging, equity and inclusion.

  Our process builds:

  • Connections to self
  • Connections to a wide variety of environments
  • Connections to family, peers, our team and community
  • Connections to learning for life

• Our curriculum is coherently planned and sequenced so that children build knowledge and skills sequentially and cumulatively
• Time is available within the curriculum for revisiting content and dealing with gaps in knowledge and skills
• Our team are committed to identifying opportunities for designing learning tasks outside of the classroom and harnessing spaces and resources on our school grounds, our Nature Park and the local area.
• Our curriculum has subject-specific rigour, so that children gain disciplinary knowledge and can answer subject-specific questions
• Leaders and teachers have a sophisticated understanding of the differences between subjects; this informs teachers’ choices and helps leaders precisely evaluate quality and take targeted actions for improvement
• Decisions about the curriculum are refined over time, based on evidence and insight from within and beyond the school
• Our curriculum is designed to give children, especially disadvantaged children, those with SEND, those who are known (or previously known) to children’s social care, and those who may face other barriers to their learning and/or well-being, the knowledge they need to take advantage of opportunities, responsibilities and experiences in later life.

Our Curriculum Priorities

• Our curriculum prioritises accurate and fluent word reading, spelling, handwriting and mathematics
• Our curriculum is designed to extend children’s language and vocabulary, both spoken and written, and increase their reading competency across all subjects
• All children are explicitly taught how to communicate effectively through spoken language (oracy), articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through speaking, listening and communication
• Our curriculum integrates planned weekly opportunities for Learning Outside the Classroom.

Our Teaching Approach

• Our approach to teaching is based on an evidence-informed understanding of effective teaching and how children learn
• Our teachers have expert knowledge of the subjects that they teach and, if they have gaps in their knowledge, they are supported so that ineffective teaching does not disadvantage our children.
• Our teachers have a strong, shared understanding of the school’s curriculum and its approach to teaching and assessment
• Our teachers present information clearly, promote appropriate discussion, check children’s understanding systematically, identify misunderstandings and adapt teaching as necessary to correct these
• Teaching resources and materials given to children enable them to achieve the aims of the curriculum
• Teachers teach the subject curriculum in a way that allows children to transfer key knowledge to long-term memory
• Teaching is sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and children can work towards clearly defined end points
• Leaders and teachers consider the most important knowledge and concepts that pupils need to know and focus on these; they prioritise feedback, retrieval practice and assessment
• Evidence informs the school’s approach to assessment; for example, assessment is used to help children embed and use knowledge fluently, to check understanding and inform teaching, or to understand different starting points and gaps
• Any gaps in children’s knowledge or skills are identified and tackled quickly
• Leaders prioritise ‘keeping up’ rather than ‘catching up’, quickly dealing with any identified gaps in children’s knowledge

Our Curriculum in Reception & KS1

• Our curriculum clearly identifies and prioritises the foundational knowledge and skills pupils need for later learning
• Our team engage children in high-quality interactions to develop their knowledge and vocabulary across all areas of learning
• Our team help pupils to articulate what they know and understand by scaffolding, modelling, extending and developing their ideas
• Our team build childrens’ emotional connection to language and help them gain awareness and control of their voices through songs, rhymes and poems
• Our team prioritise daily story time; they read aloud and re-read high-quality stories, and talk about them to build pupils’ familiarity and understanding
• Our team provide enough teaching and practice for all children to become fluent in word reading, spelling, handwriting and number facts
• Our team provide enough teaching and practice for children to be able to count and calculate, and describe time, size and shape using correct mathematical terminology

Inclusive Curriculum & Teaching

• Our team know how to identify and remove barriers to achievement for their children through effective curriculum design, formative assessment and adapting their practice to meet children’s needs
• Our school’s approach to the curriculum and teaching draws explicitly on the best available evidence, including high-quality research relating to supporting disadvantaged pupils, those with SEND, those who are known (or previously known) to children’s social care, and those who may face other barriers to their learning and/or well-being
• Any additional adults in the classroom are deployed to enable all children to access high-quality teaching from their class teacher and to develop children’s independence over time
• Reasonable adjustments or adaptations to the curriculum or teaching for specific children’s needs are well targeted and effective in reducing barriers; adaptations focus on children’s long-term success rather than short-term fixes; leaders consider the possible downsides of any adaptations and mitigate these