Our Curriculum
Whole School Breadth of Study 2023 - 2024
Our curriculum aims to develop children so they can
At The Ridge, staff, governors and parents work together to ensure children receive a rich, inspiring and engaging education in a safe and nurturing environment. By providing each child with opportunities to flourish, we develop an aspiration to expect high standards of achievement in all areas of life and start them on their personal journey of lifelong learning.
We believe that children grow and flourish as learners when given: a broad balanced curriculum, skilled quality first teaching, purposeful practice/application, opportunities to develop personal drive.
Our curriculum includes the requirements of the National curriculum as well as the range of extracurricular activities. It includes the implicit values curriculum; i.e. what the children learn from the way they are treated (and how they see adults in school being treated), from the modelling of behaviour and relationships they see within the school environment. By the time our pupils leave The Ridge they will embody and understand our key values.
We commit to working in partnership with the school community to help ensure that our pupils’ basic needs are addressed, that they are safe secure happy have good physical and mental health and high self-esteem; to have the highest possible level of learning readiness.
Strategies for meeting these needs are woven into the fabric of our curriculum so the children are best placed to engage fully with the learning opportunities it provides.
Reflection on our context has contributed to the school developing six drivers to give a particular shape to our broad and balanced curriculum to meet our overall aim of developing children so they have the knowledge and skills to make the most of the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences now, in later life and so flourish in world of the 21st and 22nd Century.
Be Articulate –
- Fluent in written English and speech. Able to argue reason justify present persuade and express thoughts feeling and ideas to write engagingly for a range of audiences
- clear in ways of thinking and problem solving in STEM (Science Technology Engineering MATHS) subjects
Be Culturally aware –
- Know about contributions made by societies now and in the past to the sum of human achievements. Understand and celebrate lives different from our own in accordance with British Values ( see separate document)
- Know how to make sense of and use of a multicultural world and contribute positively to it.
- Have access to cultural capital to enable pupils to succeed in learning and life
Be Knowledgeable-
Know key facts and concepts that help explain:
- How the world made us in the past, makes and is making us today and can be made by us in order to engage fully with debates and be an active informed member of our democracy.
Be Aspirational –
- Explore what may make you flourish, be happy and fulfilled – see what is ‘out there’
- Relish doing your best to achieve your goals and have the resilience to see them through
Be Curious –
- Develop a desire to keep on learning and finding out more about yourself and the world you live in.
- Wanting to know and do more throughout life
- Be equipped to reskill at points in the future
Be inclusive –
- understand the value and importance of all
- accept and celebrate difference
- know we all have different needs
- know how to accommodate and make all feel welcome and included
- know how to work effectively in teams and partnerships with all
What kind of curriculum best enables the above?
A curriculum that
- is research based and draws upon most up to date best practice
- is based upon the National Curriculum
- seeks to engage learners with the best of human , artistic, scientific, philosophical, spiritual , mathematical, technological , physical and creative skills knowledge and understanding – enabling them to ‘become’- expert readers, writers, presenters, to be able to act and think like scientists, geographers, historians, engineers, designers, chefs, programmers, musicians, athletes, philosophers(RE PHSE) linguists ( French) – from across the world
- Gives learners the tools to enable them to change their circumstances, pursue their goals and be a force for good in the wider world.
- helps learners understand their links and responsibilities to others and the planet
By facilitating the above through high quality teaching, we aim to:
Develop deep and lasting learning of skills knowledge and understanding
‘Learning can be defined as an alteration in long-term memory. If nothing has altered in long-term memory, nothing has been learned. However, transfer to long-term memory depends on the rich processes (as described above). In order to develop understanding, learners (must) connect new knowledge with existing knowledge. Learners also need to develop fluency and unconsciously apply their knowledge as skills… (Ofsted Inspection handbook 5.19 p45 182)
Curriculum design
- The curriculum is designed as a programme over 24 terms.
- It progressively introduces new learning, consolidates existing skills, knowledge and understanding
- Embeds learning through time through returning to key skills concepts and knowledge cyclically.
- Pupils’ individual starting points are taken into account.
- Events and teaching sequences provide opportunities to enrich life experience and deepen learning. (See curriculum overviews).
- Where appropriate, learning opportunities are linked together into ‘cross curricular’ topics.
- Discrete skills and knowledge are taught to enable learners become skilled Mathematicians, Scientists, Writers, Readers, Programmers, Historians etc. Crucially however, links between subject skill sets and knowledge are made. This reinforces and enriches the learning. (See topic outcomes criteria)
The outcomes will be
- Learners demonstrate through their written, oral, creative and physical outcomes, that they are deepening their knowledge, skills and understanding from their starting points.
- Learners attitudes towards themselves and the world around them are positive and are age appropriately sophisticated
- learners have grown towards and demonstrate attainment of the characteristics of a successful learner
- the school’s reading, writing and mathematical outcomes at least match the top 20% outcomes nationally
- Learners are fully prepared to make a success of the next formal stage of their education and are secure in the steps they have taken at The Ridge on their journey to flourish in world of the 21st Century and, potentially in the 22nd century.
- Learners are excited about learning and can talk enthusiastically about what they have learnt and what they might want to be finding out about the world next
The school follows the THRIVE programme and invests in training to help all staff understand how to support learners’ social and emotional needs, growth and development.
The school is an OPAL (Outdoor Play And Learning) school, promoting health and wellbeing through high quality outdoor play.
The school works with a range of external agencies to support families in safeguarding children and promoting physical and mental wellbeing.