Curriculum

Brushwood's Curriculum 

Our Intent

At Brushwood Junior School, we recognise that our children have varying social, cultural and spiritual backgrounds. As a school it is really important that we give all children the opportunity to have common learning experiences – with high aspirations for all, creating and shaping their social consciousness. We do all we can to equip our children with the knowledge and skills they will need for the future, helping them to be prepared for a world that is constantly changing. We do this through our Core Values which are at the heart of everything we do: Confidence, Collaboration, Ambition, Resilience and Respect. It is important therefore that we offer our children a Curriculum that is rich in Knowledge, Understanding and Transferrable Skills.

We aim:

• To provide a rich and varied curriculum which has its roots based on our school values of Confidence, Collaboration, Ambition, Resillience and Respect.
• To deliver an ambitious, aspirational curriculum which is well planned and the meets the needs of all our pupils.
• To provide an engaging curriculum which is planned sequentially, allowing children to build on previous learning and securing firm foundations for the future.
• To promote a sense of community for the children, parents and the wider community
• To prepare older pupils for life in our British Society by fostering in them attitudes and qualities which enable them to become confident, caring, responsible citizens

Implementing the Curriculum

We spent a considerable amount of time designing our curriculum discussing the needs of the community combined with extensive research. We dedicated staff CPD and INSET sessions to plan and develop the curriculum. We discussed our pupils’ backgrounds, life and cultural experiences and this has helped us to design a curriculum that meets their needs. Our staff were given time to be creative and imaginative to develop a curriculum that is unique to our school whilst covering National Curriculum objectives.

Curriculum maps are produced for each year group ensuring clarity of coverage with a strong emphasis on progression of knowledge and skills. Carefully selected enrichment opportunities are key to providing all pupils rich experiences to enhance their learning.  Developing an understanding of the fundamental British values filters through aspects of the curriculum and assembly themes.

We aim:

• That teachers will have good subject knowledge and will be supported to maintain and improve this knowledge through training, observing best practice and undertaking relevant research
• Subject leaders will provide colleagues with support for planning, resourcing and teaching
• Lessons will incorporate examples; retrieval practice and, over time, revisit teaching and knowledge skills
• Lessons will teach capital, showing children how these skills can be applied in real-life scenarios and teaching children about well-known people in each field.
• Key Learning will be broken down into manageable ‘chunks’ to ensure access to learning
• High quality texts will be used from Year 3 to Year 6 
• The school curriculum map will be planned to ensure that teaching is sequential with the subject leader and teacher ensuring that knowledge and skills are taught in a logical and progressive order
• The teaching of key vocabulary will be a primary feature in all subjects

Impact

The impact of our curriculum is monitored through

• Outcomes KS2 tests
• In school attainment tracking of core subjects
• Attendance data
• Behaviour Logs
• Engagement in enrichment activities
• Pupil voice – questionnaires, pupil book reviews
• Subject Leader monitoring – Lesson visits, scrutiny of books, assessment, pupil interviews and questionnaires 
• Governor monitoring

All children achieve well by developing knowledge and skills on their journey through school and by the end of KS2 our pupils are on track to achieve outcomes above national expectations, demonstrating excellent progress. As a result, we have high expectations that pupils will continue to make good progress through our exciting curriculum at Brushwood Junior School. Our curriculum allows children with SEND to achieve the best possible outcomes and this is monitored through Governors and in school. Children leave Brushwood ready for a successful transition to secondary school through our preparation for the next stage which includes knowledge about the importance of being safe, ready and respectful