Curriculum Statement

Inspire – Create - Achieve

Designed to challenge, engage and motivate, the ultimate goal of our knowledge-engaged curriculum at Orchard is to ensure that our learners progress both academically, personally and socially and become successful, confident individuals, who can flourish, reach and exceed their potential in life.

Curriculum Intent - ​What are we trying to achieve?

Curriculum Intent - ​What are we trying to achieve?

We want our curriculum to be inspiring
Our ambitious, knowledge-engaged curriculum is designed to instil in our pupils a passion to learn. It is engineered to inspire enthusiasm for learning by being knowledge rich and rooted in a progressive skills framework, that sits within a whole school cross-curricular approach.

We want our curriculum to be ambitious
Our intent is to provide children with a rich, vibrant curriculum that is ambitious for all learners. We search for purposeful, meaningful opportunities to extend and deepen pupils’ learning at the appropriate level for individual children’s needs in order to equip them with the knowledge, skills and personal qualities needed for lifelong achievement and success.

We want our curriculum to be enjoyable
We want Orchard Primary School to be a fun and happy place to learn. Enriched by the provision of memorable experiences, we want our curriculum to engage and excite the children, fuelling their curiosity and creating a thirst for learning.

We want our curriculum to be relevant
We hope to instil in our pupils, the behaviours, positive values and attitudes that will enable them to become respectful and responsible individuals – the ‘best possible version of themselves’ – so that they can make a positive contribution to the community and to society in both their present and future lives.

We want our curriculum to be nurturing
Through our broad, balanced and inclusive curriculum, we are determined to nurture well-rounded, happy, kind, and emotionally aware learners, who have the character and personal qualities to thrive as global citizens in a diverse and ever-changing world.

We want our curriculum to be creative
A characteristic of effective learning is creative thinking – we want our children to develop this from the outset of their learning journey: our children will be creative in their ideas, in their questions, in their solutions.

We want our curriculum to be inclusive
Our primary focus is to raise aspiration in a community where no one is limited; engendering a sense of personal pride; building resilience, and ensuring that all children experience success in an inclusive environment.

Curriculum Implementation

At the heart of our curriculum is achievement, enjoyment and enrichment.

The school is characterised by its varied, creative and challenging curriculum. It is a unique plan of what we want our pupils to know and to be able to do, at different stages and by the time they leave school. As part of cultural capital, it defines key experiences that we believe facilitate knowledge and skill acquisition.

Ambitious - Planning & Design

• At Orchard, we have designed our own ‘knowledge engaged’ curriculum which has been meticulously planned to allow for the development of themes and concepts that are of interest and relevance to our learning community. 
• Taught on a two-year rolling programme to accommodate mixed aged classes, our curriculum covers all of the National Curriculum (2014) requirements for the Primary Phase. Whilst the core elements of English and Mathematics are taught discreetly, a blocked curriculum approach has been implemented in the school to ensure coverage and progression across a number of curriculum areas. Meaningful links with foundation subjects are made where appropriate to ensure that the curriculum is a rich base of factual knowledge and vocabulary that helps pupils to make connections within a 3D model. 
• For Computing, French, PE, Music and PSHE, we use published planning resources to ensure coverage across each subject over time and to support pupils in their acquisition of knowledge, vocabulary and skills in a well-thought out and progressive manner. The Leicestershire Agreed Syllabus is used for RE. White Rose Maths and Talk for Writing inform teaching in these two core subjects. However, for Art, DT, Science, History and Geography, we use our Curriculum Progression Documents to match content with teaching as we believe that following one programme does not provide the bespoke teaching and learning experience that we want for our pupils.
• A great emphasis is placed on providing a broad curriculum ensuring every subject is valued.
• Subjects are planned to foster a life-long love of learning, through a practical, thematic approach to learning where History, Geography and Science are ‘key drivers’ for each Learning Adventure – a unit of work which takes children on a different narrative each half term incorporating an Inspiration Day, Outcome Event and the Mantle of the Expert approach.
• For each Learning Adventure, we also introduce our learners to ‘Amazing People’ – influential and diverse trailblazers from history who changed the world.  

Enjoyable – Enrichment through a thematic approach

• The acquisition of knowledge is achieved through a range of high quality, engaging and memorable learning opportunities supplemented by enrichment opportunities to widen experiences to enable our pupils to reach their full potential.
• Our approach to project-based learning through a half-termly ‘Learning Adventure’ enables subjects to be taught as part of a purposeful and contextualised theme which is designed to be exciting, engaging and impactful.
• Each Learning Adventure has clearly identified main subject drivers for progress as well as end goals; these provide the framework and key focus whilst cross-curricular opportunities are maximised in order to foster the development of writers, mathematicians, artists, designers, historians and geographers etc.
• We deliver our curriculum in a way that enables each child to ' live life in all its fullness' by offering stimulating and awe-inspiring learning experiences with values, wellbeing and character education at its heart.
• Enrichment through ‘memorable experiences’ such as Inspiration Days, special outcome events and visits/visitors are built in to make learning ‘enticing’ and to engage, immerse and hook the children into their learning experience. 
• The curriculum is also designed with books at its heart to ensure that children develop as strong readers and have a secure vocabulary base, which will encourage a deep understanding of the world.

Please click the links below to view the curriculum offer for each phase.
 Curriculum Overview EYFS.pdf                       
 Curriculum Overview KS1 Year A.pdf                          Curriculum Overview KS1 Year B.pdf
 Curriculum Overview LKS2 Year A.pdf                        Curriculum Overview LKS2 Year B.pdf
 Curriculum Overview UKS2 Year A.pdf                       Curriculum Overview UKS2 Year B.pdf
 

Further details about each individual subject can be found in ‘Curriculum Provision’ - you will find long-term planning, progression maps, subject vision statements and concept maps.  

Relevant - Progression

• We rigorously drive home knowledge which underpins pupils’ learning and enables the progressive use and application of skills in a range of contexts so that our children will have the tools needed to be successful independent life-long learners.
• Connections between concepts provide the basis for progression. The curriculum framework across each phase (EYFS, Key Stage 1, Lower Key Stage 2 and Upper Key Stage 2) has been carefully mapped to set out the necessary knowledge that will be taught, and how these essential concepts develop cumulatively throughout each unit. 
• Pupils revisit, practice, apply and deepen their prior learning within and across subject areas so that knowledge, skills and understanding is built up over time to ensure long-term retention.
• We aim to vertically integrate the learning of knowledge where there is a clear linear direction, ensuring that curriculum plans clearly indicate how objectives taught at one point in time builds on material taught earlier and feeds into what is to be taught later. Our curriculum is also planned horizontally and diagonally in order to be coherent – picking out the clear connections that arise within a particular discipline, across a particular year-group or across a range of subjects. 

Nurturing – Personal Development & Wellbeing

• SMSC (Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development) as well as Character Education is a 'golden thread' that runs throughout the curriculum.
• Through the use of special acknowledgement days, as well as our PSHE, RE and RSE curriculums, we aim to develop outward-looking pupils who are able to engage in learning about themselves and have an understanding of the wider world and its complexities.
• Effective learning characteristics, including being ambitious, reflective and determined drive teaching and learning are embedded in our daily practice through reference to our ‘Character Muscles’.
• In addition, all lessons are designed to encourage collaborative problem-solving which develop our school values and provide challenge and ambition, as well as self-management and resilience.
• A varied timetable for extra-curricular activities is offered by the school enabling the children to extend their range of experiences.

70 Things to Do Before You Leave Orchard - We believe that a broad and balanced curriculum extends beyond the classroom. We tailor and adapt our curriculum to meet the needs of our community, and in doing so, provide a wealth of experiences throughout their time at school.

Please click on the link to view the standard pupil offer of experiences in each academic year.
 The Orchard Offer.pdf

Creative – Teaching & Learning

• In all of our Learning Adventures, vertical, horizontal and diagonal links offer a creative way to develop children's knowledge, skills and understanding while motivating them to learn through stimulating, interconnected themes.
• Each Learning Adventure begins with a knowledge harvest from which we can evaluate the children’s prior knowledge and exploration of ‘The Big Question’.
• Our ‘Big Questions’ allow teachers to frame narratives and focus the learning within each Learning Adventure (unit of work). These overarching, generally open questions, have multi-dimensional answers that require a breadth of knowledge to answer comprehensively.
• Asking and subsequently answering bite-sized ‘Questions for Learning’ each ‘jigsaw lesson’ allows children to feel a sense of progression as they chip away at the larger, overarching question. Please click the link to see our ‘Big Questions’.  Orchard Big Questions.pdf
• Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction play a key role in developing knowledge and skills so that children know more and remember more overtime across all subject areas of the curriculum. Please click on the link to see more information regarding Rsoenshine’s Principles.  Rsoenshine's Principle.pdf
• We recognise that not all learning needs to be captured in the written form and or by every child. Whole class books, video or sound recordings, photographs or conversations/observations are often just as valuable in demonstrating understanding. Teaching is also therefore typified by hands on, practical learning in a creative context both inside school and outdoors.
• Assessment at Orchard is designed to shape future learning. Formal assessments in Reading, Writing and Maths are carried out three times a year and are used to track the progress of children and identify gaps in learning so that next steps in learning can be planned for. Attainment across the foundation subjects and Science is made throughout the year using learning observations and formative assessments of recorded work.

• The learning environment is designed in a way that engages and inspires children; it is linked to current learning and language rich to support the children’s vocabulary, oracy and writing development throughout the Learning Adventure.

Inclusive – Success for all

• As a school, we pride ourselves on having created a nurturing and enabling environment for children to learn and thrive.  High expectations and the insistence of good behaviour for learning are at the heart of this and is supported by the promotion of positive mental health and a culture of resilience. 
• Both Core and Foundation lessons are designed to provide our pupils with the scaffolding required to access the learning at all levels.

Impact

• The positive impact of our curriculum can be seen in the quality of work produced by pupils and the in-year progress demonstrated by all groups of learners. Pupils develop detailed knowledge and skills across the curriculum and, as a result, achieve well.
• Impact is also reflected in the results from statutory testing that consistently exceed national averages.
• Our children demonstrate confidence, independence, resilience and a real thirst for learning.
• Pupils are articulate and confident to talk about a wide range of topics.
• Our children are able to form meaningful relationships based upon mutual respect and trust, recognising and celebrating difference, not only within the school community, but in the wider world as well.
• Pupils with SEND achieve the best possible outcomes.
• Pupils read widely and often, with fluency and comprehension appropriate to their age. They are able to apply mathematical knowledge, concepts and procedures appropriately for their age.
• Pupils’ behaviour for learning is excellent, their kindness towards each other outstanding and their stewardship of our environment superb.
• Our children have aspirations for the future and know that these can be realised with hard work and determination.
• Children leave Orchard with a sense of belonging to a caring and inclusive community, with confidence and skills to make decisions, self- evaluate, form positive relationships and become lifelong learners. Our children are well prepared to access the challenges of the secondary school curriculum.