Curriculum
Intent
The Orchards Primary Academy Curriculum Intent 2019-2020
At The Orchards Primary Academy we provide a knowledge engaged curriculum, which has been built around the needs of our children and our community. At The Orchards, we believe that knowledge must remain a focus, enabling the application of skill.
It is a largely thematic curriculum however; some subjects are taught discreetly such as Music, PE, MFL and Science, as well as certain elements of PSHE. Although we make links between our themes and P4C, we believe, due to the nature of our demographic, that some aspects of PSHE must be taught explicitly.
We believe that a thematic curriculum enables children to make strong links, not only between subjects but across year groups too.
Specialist teachers deliver Music and PE sessions. We do this to ensure our children are getting the highest quality knowledge and skills within these subjects, as well as being able to deliver quality extra-curricular activities such as choir, drums, violin, sports clubs and drumming.
Our curriculum follows the teach, practise, repeat model to ensure that children think, discuss, practise and explore, but most importantly embed the skills and knowledge that have been taught.
Quality writing opportunities in the wider curriculum have been carefully and skilfully planned for every year group and are intrinsically linked with the Inspire Education learning platform. Extended writing opportunities give the children the opportunity to put their knowledge in to context.
When designing the curriculum for our children, we were focused on three main encompassing elements that run through every theme:
• Daily life of…
• Environment…
• Legacy and lessons learned
We determined these over-arching headings with the aim of ensuring that we are focusing on in-depth understanding of fewer subject areas; providing our children with a mastery curriculum rather than a ‘watered down’ version encompassing too many aspects.
Our Curriculum Promise allows for enrichment of subjects and sets out the commitment that we have to our children; visits, visitors, values and experiences.