Curriculum
We define our ‘curriculum’ as the total of a child’s experience whilst here at Fordbridge Community Primary School, ensuring that they are secondary school ready with the right knowledge and skills for the next stage of their educational journey, but also ensuring that our children are ready to be the citizens and future of our world. Our approach to the curriculum complies with the duties set out I the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Education Needs and Disability Regulations 2014.
How do I find out more?
On this page you will find all of our curriculum maps.
If you would like to find out more about our curriculum please speak to the class teacher or someone in the curriculum team:
Mrs S Rance
Mrs S Boswell
Mrs C Green ( EYFS )
All of which would be happy to share and answer any questions.
National curriculum in England: primary curriculum - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
School Target: to ensure that we are consistently offering a broad, balanced and ambitious curriculum which is bespoke for the children at Fordbridge.
- To continue to develop the effectiveness of subject leaders within each curriculum area to ensure standards continue to improve in all areas.
- To deliver a broad and balanced curriculum ensuring that all subjects are coherently planned and sequenced in order to develop knowledge and skills, aswell as opportunities, responsibilities and experiences for later life.
- To develop Enquiry Based Learning, through the promotion of Characteristics for Effective Learning, the Skills Builder programme and embed throughout all subjects.
- To continue to embed an informative and effective assessment tool in order to track progress through checking pupils' systematic understanding through embedding key concepts into childrens' long term memory.
| RATIONALE | Fordbridge Community Primary School's curriculum is designed to promote and embed life-long learning behaviours through: independence, choice, collaboration, aspiration and personal discovery. We provide rich and varied extra – curricular opportunities for all groups of children. We place high importance on the school community and always ensure that our resources, lessons, experiences and curriculum are tailored to the area we serve, whilst also ensuring exposure to the wider world and current affairs. |
| SEQUENCING | The ethos behind the Fordbridge learning style is the promotion of Enquiry Based Learning using the schools outstanding facilities as a vessel to support this. We have the National Curriculum, which we use as a starting point, and embellish and deepen further as a school. Through collaboration with experts (Historical/Geographical Society) we have carefully broken the content down and sequenced logically to allow for progression, with regular opportunities to revisit and reactivate prior knowledge. At the heart of this is children being exposed to quality experiences and lessons with an element of choice and need for independent thinking. Parental involvement is ever improving and evolving, and children are immersed into experiences with visits or off timetable days of discovery. Parents coming into school to join in on some of these experiences bolsters our offer and deepens the experiences further. We are problem solvers, leaders, collaborators, analysists, questioners, innovators and explorers! This academic year we are embedding our own Characteristics for Effective Learning across the school, in order to embed our passion of developing ‘learners and not children who learn’. These characteristics will be differentiated throughout the key stages in order to prepare our learners as ‘people’ for secondary school and beyond. Within every stage of a child’s journey at Fordbridge, children contribute to the direction of the learning process and are given the opportunity to help sculpt the direction of the curriculum through various different councils, which is a reflection of pupil voice at Fordbridge. Our curriculum uses technology, collaboration and encouragement as the basis for encouraging learning. The learning and development of young people continues after school, through a rich extra-curricular timetable. Our rich and varied extra- curricular programme continues to develop our children’s life skills way beyond the traditional curriculum subjects with over 35 clubs per week available for children both before and after school. Through Fordbridge University and the collaboration with various local businesses, we are creating; doctors, hairdressers, engineers, beauticians, chefs, builders, carpenters, plumbers, bank managers, teachers, fashion designers and many more. But more importantly, we are providing the choice, freedom and belief for children to sculpt and design their own future and destiny! |
| MONITORING AND IMPACT | The Fordbridge mindset places the learner back at the center of the curriculum and insists practitioners consider… "What do we want our children to learn and retain, what personal and educational tools will they need to get there, what could be the possible outcomes and how will these skills relate to the lives children lead within and beyond our community". It is beginning to produce children who must and can, think for themselves, be resilient and face challenges with strategies to overcome and progress. As a result of this, children will be successful learners, who can apply their learning skills and knowledge set out in the national curriculum, in order to meet national expectations and make better than expected progress from their baselines. Within a single day at Fordbridge, our children can embark on intellectual adventures by engaging and connecting with the learning materials, environments and challenges we present across all subjects. The Fordbridge curriculum uses minimally invasive teaching, allows children to learn for themselves, provides encouragement and creates an environment to promote curiosity. Fordbridge monitor the understanding and retention of knowledge and skills through regular retrieval quizzes, feedback and carefully planned end point opportunities as a platform for children to independently showcase the knowledge and skills transferred into long term memory. Each term, teachers and subject leaders collaborate to identify pupils who are not meeting age related expectation, identify barriers and plan opportunities to close gaps. With rigorous and bespoke support and CPD opportunities, middle leaders are given the tools to monitor the impact of their subjects on pupils' long term outcomes and respond to national changes and picture. Children leave Fordbridge with a sense of belonging to a tightly-knit community where they have the confidence and skills to make decisions, reflect and self-evaluate, make connections and become lifelong learners. With a solid foundation of our golden values: respect, resilience, reliability and responsibility. |
School Target: to ensure that we are consistently offering a broad, balanced and ambitious curriculum which is bespoke for the children at Fordbridge in Phase 1
- To develop the knowledge and understanding of subject leaders within each prime and specific area of learning to ensure the curriculum is bespoke to all learners.
- To deliver a broad and balanced curriculum ensuring that all areas of learning are coherently planned and sequenced in order to provide experiences and develop knowledge and skills in all areas.
- To continue to embed child-initiated learning through the continued use of Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning
- To continue to use skillful observation and assessment to inform children’s next steps and future planning
| RATIONALE | Our shared pedagogy has enabled us to develop a curriculum that is balanced between child-initiated learning and the opportunity to acquire new knowledge through more direct teaching. In phase One we place children’s well-being at the for-front of all learning experiences. Through the Characteristics of Effective Learning we endeavor to promote a resilient, challenged and independent learning culture which reflects the uniqueness of the Early Years curriculum. |
| SEQUENCING | Our Termly expectations are the basis for all learning opportunities and these are steadily built upon throughout the school year to enable children to progress from their starting points. The carefully thought out learning environment enables children to follow their desires and interests and connect with their learning through direct teaching and purposefully planned play opportunities. We are a team of practitioners all of whom possess high expectations which promote our four core school values of being reliable, resilient, responsible and respectful. We provide experiences, opportunities and skills that are carefully planned and well taught to enable children to progress in all areas of their learning. As a phase we ensure the learning journey for all learners is continually progressive incorporating breath, balance and depth. As children develop their individual skill set, learning will become more discovery and enquiry led bespoke to each individual. |
| MONITORING AND IMPACT | School tracking confirms that the children enter our setting typically below the expected standard but exit reception in line with the national expected standard or above. This is due to the careful planning and implementation of the curriculum where we ensure all children make progress from their different starting points with teaching and learning that is bespoke to the setting and the needs of the children. As a setting you will observe children displaying high levels of well- being and involvement as well as children displaying all the Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning. The growth of children’s cultural capital will be evident as the children will acquire the knowledge and skills for what comes next in their lives. Every child will be given the best start in life that we can offer. Children leave Phase one with a sense of belonging to a tightly-knit community where they have the confidence and skills to make connections and become lifelong learners on their school journey |