Parents: Please find below the current Curriculum Overviews for this half term- these have also been emailed home to you and get updated each half term.  Our curriculum starts in Foundation and details of this are on our Early Years page.

We are proud of our curriculum model at High Ash CE School. We have developed it over the last four years to ensure that it is bespoke, progressive, deepens knowledge and understanding and provides a range of interconnected learning opportunities so that children can know more and remember more. It is underpinned by a clear intent, open-ended and rich learning experiences that go beyond the national curriculum to ensure it makes links with personal and spiritual development so that children have the cultural capital needed for their next stage of learning and for their futures.

We also continuously strive to improve, so we ensure that we regularly monitor the impact of our curriculum through talking to the children about their learning in their books and to provide them with opportunities to recall and apply their knowledge so that they are able to retain what they have learnt and also apply prior learning to new concepts.

How do we plan our curriculum?

We follow and go beyond the national curriculum for our school and enhance this by having clearly set knowledge milestones across subjects so that knowledge acquisition is progressive and allows for children to make links between subjects in year and over time. This is through us using a range of high quality resources to ensure a curriculum that is engaging and challenging for all children in our school, including children with special educational needs.

Our key knowledge milestones are then used to ensure we are teaching subjects in a specific order and follow a two year rolling programme due to our mixed age classes.

Our learning is focused around a half termly Topic that is usually Humanities, Science or Arts focused.  We link our English lessons to this topic area as well as Guided Reading (in KS2) and our class novels. We use the curriculum milestones to plan a specific scope for the Topic so that we are able to give depth as well as breadth as to what the children are learning.  

Some lessons however are taught discretely  such as Science, RE, PHSE, PE and French or if they are not covered adequately by the Topic for that half term.   Art, DT, Music and Computing are taught in blocks regularly throughout the year as well as through our Topics and Themed Weeks.

Having listened to our children and in planning a curriculum specifically suited to our school, we are keen that the Topics are allowing them access to a range of high quality learning opportunities that reflect a range of cultural, historical, topical and social events, people, art and literature and in a way that is ambitious and allows for challenge. We know our children enjoy having the time to get their teeth into a subject and this approach allows this to happen! We are keen to allow them to gain knowledge and then allow them time to apply this, make links with their learning and deepen their understanding through looking at a concept or 'big question'. 

How do we deliver our curriculum?

Please refer to the specific subject tabs for details on Reading, English and Maths

Our Topics follow a four stage approach for each half term's Topic.

1. Engage Phase- At the start of every half term we have a Hook Day where we engage the children and make them curious and enthused by the new Topic as well as make links with prior learning

2. Develop Phase- over the first four weeks of a Topic we ensure the children gain the key knowledge needed to meet the scope of the Topic and take part in open ended activities to impart this knowledge to them.

3. Innovate Phase- this is the application phase whereby the children have an activity that demonstrate they can apply and understand the knowledge learnt.

4. Express and Assess Phase- this ensures we can assess the impact of what the children have learnt and to what standard. We use our own exemplifications to assess this, based on guidance from Cornerstones assessment tools. 

Themed Weeks

In order to allow the children to apply, make links and reinforce their learning at a more conceptual level, we also have three themed weeks a year,  which are run either across key stages or the whole school. More information on these can be found under 'News and Events'. 

Wider opportunities

Our curriculum extends to a range of wider opportunities and we are proud to provide our children with the chance for example to be in a choir, orchestra, perform at Young Voices, attend an extensive range of PE Festivals, take part in an annual Oracy Showcase, go on educational visits, have special Hook Days, learn to cook, do carpentry, create animations, work with our secondary schools, take part in Big Bang Science Week, Bikeability and support voluntary work around our school and for local charities. We also support their  well being through 'Commando Joe's' initiative as well as in the past working with the 'Art of Being Brilliant'.

Please scroll down to see a summary of our Two Year Rolling Programme. We also have more detailed knowledge milestones for our curriculum  in school should you wish to find out more.

Each half term, parents are sent home a curriculum overview for information and a recommended reading list.