In collaboration with Northampton Primary Academy Trust, the staff at Thorplands work together to deliver a curriculum which is research based and linked to the science of effective learning. Our aims and principles for the whole curriculum are deeply rooted in the aims and values of the Trust.
Our curriculum has a clear focus on the acquisition of knowledge content. It is constructed as a narrative with clearly planned vertical, horizontal and diagonal links that, over time, will develop the children’s wider understanding of the world. Within separate subjects, we focus learning on high dividend concepts which are derived from the National Curriculum Programmes of Study and Aims.
Our approach to planning the curriculum is rooted in research about cognitive science; its sequencing, coherence and intentional development of pupils’ schema. It seeks to transfer knowledge from the short term to the long term memory over time. The children will embed learning as they move through the school connecting ideas, facts, information and concepts into expanding schemas of knowledge.
We ensure that there is progression for each subject within units of learning and across year groups. Lessons are sequenced, to build on prior knowledge and they are scaffolded so that every child can achieve. The learning of concepts is spaced and retrieval practice built in regularly to support longer term retention.
A key driver which helps to shape our curriculum and weaves throughout each subject is learning for life. In preparing our pupils for lifelong learning, we aim to foster the on-going and self-motivated desire to learn and grow from within. We encourage children to pursue knowledge at every opportunity and acknowledge that this is best done through talking, listening and reading.
We ensure rich opportunities to develop Sport and the Arts and are are focusing on developing Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths to give children real life problems and hands on experience to develop their curiosity and enthusiasm for these areas. Throughout the curriculum, children meet and learn about the 'British values' of democracy, the rule of law, liberty, respect and tolerance both explicitly and implicitly to prepare children for life in Modern Britain.
Northampton Primary Academy Trust Curriculum - Aims and Principles
A broad, rich and rigorous curriculum is at the heart of Northampton Primary Academy Trust’s vision to achieve educational excellence; creating opportunities and enriching lives. It forms an essential part of the trust’s mission to develop a multi-academy trust of highly effective and sustainable schools. The trust’s aspiration and ambition is for every child to achieve highly, for every school to be a great school and every individual to continually improve. We see access to a well-sequenced and well-planned curriculum, taught by highly skilled, knowledgeable teachers, as the route to educational excellence and an entitlement of every child in NPAT schools. In the trust, a broad, rich and rigorous curriculum is seen as the driver of school improvement, not a casualty of it.
What is the curriculum?
NPAT schools subscribe to a broad and comprehensive definition of ‘curriculum’ as ‘all the learning which is planned and guided by the school’ (Kerr quoted in Kelly 1983). This requires planning and decision making to be intentional across all areas of school life. NPAT schools recognise the following recent definition of curriculum by Ofsted. “The curriculum is a framework for setting out the aims of a programme of education, including the knowledge and skills to be gained at each stage (intent); for translating that framework over time into a structure and narrative, within an institutional context (implementation) and for evaluating what knowledge and skills pupils have gained against expectations (impact/achievement).”(Ofsted 2019)
The Importance of Knowledge
Our curriculum has a clear focus on the acquisition of knowledge content. It is constructed as a narrative over time with clearly planned vertical, horizontal and diagonal links that, over time, will develop the children’s wider understanding of the world. It is based on National Curriculum content. The curriculum is rooted in research about Cognitive Science; its sequencing, coherence and intentional development of pupils’ schema. High quality professional learning opportunities for teachers to develop appropriate subject knowledge will augment the implemented curriculum materials. ‘The vast, accumulated wealth of human knowledge, and what we choose to pass on to the next generation through teaching in our schools (the curriculum),must be at the heart of education. ’Amanda Spielman (HMCI)
