DDAT Curriculum Vision
Our trust aims for all their schools to provide its pupils with a substantial, broad and balanced curriculum, ensuring that they are fully immersed in knowledge, skills, vocabulary, opportunities, responsibilities and experiences relevant to the world in which they live.
They recognise that each school is unique and has developed its own curriculum intent. As a trust, they believe that it is essential to recognise what is important to each individual school’s identity; their pupils and communities. Across the schools, our curricula do not look the same because our schools are all different. We support each other in curriculum implementation and schools work well together as well as with the School Improvement Team to improve shared priorities.
Professional development is fundamental to our success as a MAT equipping school leaders and all staff to deliver the very best to the children in all our schools.
Our Curriculum
Bolsover Church of England Junior School is an inclusive school where we aim to meet the unique needs of individual pupils whilst supporting them in fulfilling ambitions and striving to be the best that they can be. We grow confident pupils with the want for them to participate equally with others regardless of background, special needs or disability not only for them to experience life in all its fullness in childhood but also in adulthood too.
Here at Bolsover Church of England Junior School, we believe that a happy pupil is a good learner and that happiness as well as mental and physical wellbeing should be ends in themselves. We provide a warm and caring environment that nurtures confidence, self-esteem, kindness and support whilst challenging our pupils to develop resilience and perseverance and to be respectful of beliefs, customs and practices of others.
When planning our curriculum, at the very forefront, is the absolute desire to excite and challenge all pupils whilst providing them with the essential knowledge, understanding and skills necessary for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences they will undoubtedly face in life beyond Bolsover. Determining the design of the curriculum (including the concepts and skills pupils must grasp), are the endpoints our school wishes the pupils to reach. Since knowledge exists in rich schemata, we ensure that our pupils are taught concepts and skills in an order that enables them to make useful connections. Using the National Curriculum as a minimum expectation, leaders have sequenced learning in individual subjects so that knowledge builds incrementally about people, places, concepts and ideas. Alongside this, skills progression in different subjects is carefully taught and linked to this knowledge, so that skills development (knowing 'how to') is related to what has been learned within subject areas.
Progress in learning is defined as knowing more and remembering more, and this is tested regularly to ensure that key concepts - identified by staff as the most important - stick in children's memory.
Over time, children's understanding of the world will therefore strengthen as they develop ever-more complex webs of knowledge that have been linked together, and they will begin to recognise links of their own. For each unit of work, key concepts and knowledge - and how they link to prior and future learning across subjects are shared with parents in 'Knowledge Organisers'.
Each subject discipline is clearly defined when being taught. The plans below have more information about this. These plans are then broken down further into smaller steps by teachers in unit plans which match the overarching subject plans.
Within our school curriculum, vocabulary plays a significant part in embodying and communicating concepts through reading, exploration of new vocabulary and its meaning within contexts that stimulate our pupils’ thinking. We prioritise broadening pupils' vocabulary, as knowledge and understanding depend upon a rich vocabulary of the words that define the world. This links strongly to Reading (for more information see our 'Reading' page). Vocabulary progression is taught throughout school as well as subject-specific words that are planned across the curriculum (see individual subject curriculum documents below).
Underpinning our curriculum design and sequencing is our school’s vision. We value every child and every moment and therefore our curriculum is structured to ensure that our pupils can be the best that they can be by providing them with the building blocks of what they need to know, remember and be able to do to succeed. As our pupils journey throughout school, they know more and have more capacity to learn.
Our curriculum allows for pupils to experience life in all its fullness - it goes beyond Bolsover and helps them to develop a good understanding of their role in society and the world in which they live recognising and appreciating the past, present and future.
Our curriculum is delivered through:
A thematic approach that is flexible and adaptable to the meet the needs of our individual pupils alongside the discrete teaching of reading, writing, grammar, spelling and maths.
Planned opportunities to teach and revisit key skills, knowledge and understanding in order to secure learning and ensure progress as well as opportunities to learn new knowledge when new concepts are connected with what has already been learned.
- An approach which allows for feedback to be provided at the point of learning.
- Memorable experiences to hook and engage our pupils into their learning.
- Thematic lessons which begin with a “big start” and end with a “big finish”.
- Quality key texts that promote the use and development of rich vocabulary.
- Provide opportunities to develop oracy skills through a range of exciting speaking and listening opportunities and challenges.
- Opportunities to develop pupils’ social and emotional skills.
- High quality support and (wherever possible) same day intervention to meet identified needs including pre and post teaching.
- A strong community approach with pupils at the very heart.
Through the teaching of our curriculum, we aim for every child to grow and flourish and leave Bolsover with a strong sense of well-being as well as the knowledge and skills to help positively shape the society in which they will live.
Despite school closures in the past, our curriculum continues to be broad, balanced and include the essential knowledge and skills whilst at the same time working to recover missed learning that is essential for our pupils to progress. As a consequence, we have developed policies and practices, including a blended learning approach to ensure standards both in and out of school remain high and that learning time is maximized. The intentions of the curriculum are deeply rooted within the work of the school where approaches are adapted to meet the changing demands in society whilst ensuring we serve our children and community with a bespoke core.
Accessing the Curriculum
Teachers liaise closely with the SENDCO and parents, as well as external agencies, to adapt the curriculum to make it fully accessible for pupils with SEND. Please see the 'Accessing the Curriculum for Pupils with SEND' (which can be found by clicking here) for how we do this. There is more information on our SEND page on the same tab above.
We also outline our duties under the Equalities Act and Public Sector Equality Duty to pay particular heed to identified groups, including objectives to improve Reading and Attendance rates for disadvantaged pupils, and ensure strong provision for pupils with SEND. Please follow the link below on Equality Policy/PSED for more information about this.
Updated: February 2022
