Bradley Green Curriculum
At Bradley Green Primary Academy, we believe that the curriculum should provide children with the experiences and knowledge of the world they live in, as we truly believe that ‘Knowledge is power’. Threaded throughout our curriculum are the four core values: confidence, curiosity, challenge and respect, which we believe are vital life skills to enable children to achieve their potential. We provide the children with a rich and broad curriculum where all pupils can learn and achieve in our ‘Ambition for Excellence’. High quality texts drive our curriculum and allow children to be fully submerged in their learning. Each unit in our bespoke curriculum is progressive, has links to, and builds upon previous learning to enable deeper knowledge and understanding.
Teachers plan for pupils to be exposed to concepts and scenarios that no matter what their background, they will never be at a disadvantage, ensuring there is a large emphasis on cultural capital to develop a wide understanding of the world around them, in our constant strive to prepare them for the next steps in their learning.
We use an enquiry approach to our learning opportunities; this means children are constantly deepening their knowledge and understanding through the collaborative experiences and questions planned for them, not only by teachers, but being challenged by their peers. Questions form the basis of this approach so we can develop collaboration and peer support as well as a greater understanding of the curriculum.
Through high quality texts that drive our curriculum, we ensure that the development of vocabulary is key, as it is vital that children be fully submerged in their learning. We know that children who are readers go onto be successful learners who take risks, become curious and reflective life-long learners.
Health and well-being of our pupils, families and staff is very important to us. From the fantastic healthy school meals which are cooked freshly on the premises each day to the daily mile and sports competitions we take part in, we believe that in the few years children are at Bradley Green, we can really have a positive impact on their ability to reach their true potential.
Physical development of all children is really important to us. We aim to ensure al children leave school being able to ride a bike, and are given the opportunity to represent their school in sporting competitions. We were even awarded the virtual school games award because of our commitment to our children’s physical health and well-being during lockdown.
Aims of the curriculum at Bradley Green
- For children to acquire knowledge
- For children to develop a wealth of vocabulary
- For children to embed knowledge and vocabulary into long term memory
- For children to be exposed to concepts/scenarios that their own personal experience wouldn’t allow for
Curriculum design
Subject leaders, the curriculum lead, teaching staff and children have all made contributions to the design of the curriculum so that as a school we have a learning curriculum which has been specifically and purposefully designed for the children of Bradley Green.
As a school, we have identified the most important knowledge and vocabulary, for all subjects, that we expect children to know and remember. We know that for information to embed into long term memory, constant retrieval needs to take place, therefore, our curriculum has a strong focus on retrieval practice. For each unit, the children take home ‘Knowledge organisers. This document contains the essential knowledge and vocabulary that the children need to know and understand in order to access their learning. The knowledge organisers are designed to be used at home by parents to help children learn the information contained within them as well as in class as a useful reference and retrieval tool.
When designing our curriculum, we have made links to previous learning and future learning. It is important to activate prior knowledge so that children can make links to what they already know. This then provides a sturdy platform from which to construct new knowledge and understanding.
We have also carefully considered potential misconceptions in the units to be taught. We ensure that our high-quality teaching explicitly addresses these misconceptions.
Broad and balanced curriculum
Below is a range of opportunities the children are exposed to during their time at Bradley Green Primary Academy
- PE coaches – specialised PE provision
- Tameside Music service – specialist music teaching
- Cookery club
- Forest school for EYFS and Y1 as well as KS2 after school provision
- French for all children in KS2
- Safe squad
- Prison service visit
- Opticians visit
- Opportunity to represent school on a sports team
- Rail safety assembly
- Local vicar leading assemblies
- Robin wood residential
- Visits to a church, mosque, and Hindu temple