The Curriculum
The Curriculum Aims of our Academy Jerry Clay Academy aims to provide a knowledge-rich, purposeful and balanced curriculum based on the following principles. 1. To help pupils to develop lively, enquiring minds, the ability to question and argue rationally and to apply themselves to tasks and physical skills. 2. To help pupils to acquire deep knowledge in every subject and be provided with skills relevant to adult life and employment in a fast-changing world. 3. To enable every pupil to read, use language and number efficiently. 4. To instil respect for religious values, and tolerance of other races, religions and ways of life. 5. To help pupils to understand the world in which they live and the interdependence of individuals, groups and nations. 6. To help pupils to appreciate human achievements and aspirations. 7. To ensure reading really is at the heart of our curriculum and permeates all subjects. 8. To develop our children’s love of learning. 2
The ‘MAGIC’ of the Jerry Clay Curriculum At Jerry Clay Academy we recognise that all children are entitled to have access to a broad range of learning experiences which allow them to develop the knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes necessary for their self-fulfilment and to enable them to play a full part as knowledgeable, responsible citizens in the 2lst Century. The curriculum aims to provide opportunities for all pupils to learn and to achieve, irrespective of social background, culture, race, gender, differences in ability and disabilities. All this, whilst ensuring our children receive a ‘magical’ primary education. We aim to provide essential skills of literacy, numeracy, and information and communication technology, helping them to develop enquiring minds and the ability to think rationally. The curriculum also promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and supports them in developing principles for distinguishing between right and wrong. Pupils are encouraged to think creatively and critically and to respect others and the environments in which they live. The curriculum enables pupils to develop their physical skills and promotes their personal and social well-being. We believe that the curriculum should stimulate enjoyment of, and commitment to, learning as a means of encouraging the best possible progress and the highest attainment for all pupils, preparing them effectively for the next steps in their education. 3
What makes the curriculum unique at Jerry Clay Academy? 4
The children are at the heart of our curriculum We believe that every child should have the opportunity to develop and build their self-esteem and self-confidence, as we believe these traits are pre-determiners to future success. We encourage our children to have high aspirations and strive to be the very best they can be. We have extremely high expectations of ourselves and others. We want our children to be responsible, knowledgeable and effective by the time they finish their journey at Jerry Clay Academy and move onto the next phase of their lives. Over a number of years, we have constantly developed the curriculum that we provide for our children. Our main aim is to provide a knowledge-rich, stimulating and connected curriculum. It is important to us that children can make clear connections of concepts across the curriculum. This ensures that our children develop a depth of understanding in all subjects. Through excellently teaching each subject in our curriculum, we strive to ensure they are relevant and meaningful for our children. We use a number of different approaches to explore and deliver our subjects to ensure our children develop all the knowledge and skills they need to be confident and successful learners. We want our children to be inquisitive and passionate about their learning and spark a desire for life long learning. This is where the ‘magic’ of a knowledge-rich curriculum comes in at JCA. 5
Reading permeates our whole curriculum Reading is a fundamental part of life at Jerry Clay Academy. Children are given the opportunity to read in many areas of their school life, and we ensure that all students leave us with the critical reading skills they will need for successful, happy lives 6
We believe that the Early Years Curriculum is paramount to ensuring children get the best start Our Early Years setting is welcoming, innovative, reactive and supports our youngest learners in discovering and developing the early building blocks for successful learning. Through a balance of teacher-directed and childinitiated learning, children engage in a quality learning experience. The learning environment provides the scaffold to challenge and promote effective learning, both indoors and outdoors. Learning environments provide an exciting context for developing an early love of learning. Language and reading are central to our aims, as well as ensuring our children have an excellent exposure to all areas of learning across the EYFS. Robust Approaches to English and Mathematics Daily teaching of English and Mathematics, both as discreet lessons and across the wider curriculum enable our children to reach high standards by the end of both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. Children’s progress across our academy is high, regardless of starting point. The whole school’s progressive framework for English provides children with real-life and engaging purposes and audiences for reading, writing, speaking and listening. Daily teaching of phonics and spelling is highly interactive and enables children to secure at least age-related expectations in these core basics. Children read widely and often across the curriculum and as a result of this our children achieve excellent standards across the whole curriculum. Our approach to mathematics involves a daily Mathematics session and small bitesize sessions to practise times tables and key maths facts. Children develop fluency and depth within the curriculum and as a result they grow as confident mathematicians. 7
The Curriculum From the time children enter our academy, we aim to engage them in the importance and uniqueness of every subject whilst emphasising the relationships between subjects. All children study the full requirements of the national curriculum across all core and foundation subjects. This ensures that children’s cultural capital is developed through acquisition of knowledge, skills and understanding in: • English • Mathematics • Science • Design Technology • Religious Education • Geography • History • Computing • Modern Foreign Languages (Spanish) • Music • Physical Education • Art & Design • Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education (PSHCE) including Relationships Education The Curriculum Model The Jerry Clay Curriculum Model outlines our key principles of our curriculum. The heart of our curriculum: • Subjects • JCA Learner traits/well-being • Leadership • Purpose Components of our curriculum that make it unique: • Strong connection to the Community • The Learning Environment • Theme Weeks • Projects • Process- a clear build-up of knowledge over time using quality, research-informed teaching All of which ensure that these elements permeate everything we do: • Reading • Relevance • Reflection • Responsiveness 8
Reading Reflection Learner Traits / Well-being The seven learner traits of a JCA pupil are; perseverance, carer, inquirer, risktaker, teamwork, communicator and thinker. These are paramount and run through the core of everything at Jerry Clay Academy. They are central in our aim to promote the development of secure, happy, well-adjusted individuals who are equipped for lifelong learning. Leadership Leadership is an important aspect at the core of our curriculum. Individual subjects are driven not only by staff subject leaders, but by Junior Leaders too. Pupil voice is important to how we continue to shape our curriculum. We believe that developing leadership in our children enables them to develop confidence, strength of voice and prepares them for their future education and life. Purpose We believe a curriculum with purpose is key to obtaining the best possible outcomes through the curriculum. The purpose is one of the main drivers in a subject and has the potential to motivate, enthuse and inspire our children even more. We believe that a purposeful curriculum motivates, inspires and embeds rich knowledge into our children’s working memories. Community / Experiences We are passionate about including the whole community in our curriculum. This does not just involve the local community but nationally and internationally. It is important to us to develop cultural capital, respect and appreciation of the world around them. Environment Using the environment to it’s potential support, extends and challenges the development of our curriculum. We are passionate about using the indoors and outdoors to enhance learning opportunities and make the best possible use of promoting learning around school. Children are inspired by our environment , it exudes our expectations and encourages children to take pride in everything they do. Theme Weeks Theme Weeks inspire our children and allow for an in-depth focus on specific subject and a key component of it. Children thrive during subject weeks and always have a purpose and an outcome to achieve by the end of the week. Purposeful Project The purposeful projects in a theme gives added purpose that children are inspired by. It ensures that children have a clear aim , clear learning intentions and have goals to achieve before getting to the desired outcome. Process The process is incredibly important to help to get to the desired outcome and is planned out very clearly through long and medium term plans. We ensure that every subject area is clearly mapped out to ensure coverage which is age appropriate, challenging and offers children to explore the subject in-depth. By sharing the process with everyone involved, there is a clear aim and every task is meaningful. Reading, Relevance, Reflection, Responsive We believe that these aspects should happen throughout all of these strands above. We strongly believe that Reading is at the absolute heart of our curriculum. Whether it be reactive to current affairs or to children’s interests, adapting our curriculum is key to maintaining interest , ensure knowledge is embedded & reacting to what is happening in the world around us, whilst maintaining subject coverage. Community / Experiences Teaching Curriculum Subject Areas Learner Traits Leadership Responsive Relevance Well-Being Our Curriculum 9
Our Themes We encourage clear links between the different aspects of our children’s learning, including opportunities for extended activities which draw different strands of learning together integrating knowledge, skills and understanding across different areas of the curriculum. This, however, is never at the expense of depth within a subject and therefore our approach is to use both discrete and interdisciplinary subject teaching as appropriate to the context being taught. 10
Themes change every term and are listed below for each year group: EYFS Marvellous me Into the woods Frozen planet The circle of life Under the sea Miniature worlds Year 1 Dungeons and Dragons What Does it Mean to Belong? Incredible Creatures Year 2 Magnificent Miners Do We Always Appreciate What We’ve Got? What’s The Weather? Year 3 The Lost World What is Community? The Great Outdoors Year 4 The Hero’s Journey How Can Small Actions Eventually Change the World? Grand Designs Year 5 The Great Divide What is the Difference Between Living and Surviving? Life Through a Lens Year 6 Treasures Does Adversity Make You Stronger? All The World’s A Stage 11
Educational Visits At Jerry Clay Academy, our children have the opportunity for Educational Visits at least once per half term. These visits are planned out at the start of the year and provide a focus for learning upon return to school. Again, these real-life opportunities are paramount for our children and often provide fantastic learning opportunities which strengthen the acquisition of knowledge and ignite passion and interest. 12
Parental Engagement Parents have the opportunity to come into the academy weekly in the EYFS and KS1 to read & discover what their child has been learning about. At least three times during each academic year, our school community has the chance to participate in workshops or galleries linked to each year group’s theme and subjects of study. This is a valuable opportunity for staff, parents and children to interact and engage in learning that links to the learning in school. We believe that these events develop our children’s confidence to present the knowledge which they have learnt across all subjects. Articulating out loud, commits their powerful learning to memory. 13
Theme Weeks/Days Each term, we provide children with more fantastic, rich learning through our curriculum subject weeks. These weeks have a subjectspecific focus and each year group has a focus of their own. Each week has an outcome and usually involves our whole school community. Each year, each class has a specific Outdoor Learning Day; however, Outdoor Learning lessons take place weekly as part of a lesson across our whole curriculum. Careers Education We want our children to have high aspirations for adult life and embed career learning into the curriculum, developing strong links with businesses and professionals. We integrate these into our yearly whole school assembly schedule. One of the key challenges within the Jerry Clay Pupil Passport is to ‘have high aspirations and skills for adult life’ and we use this as a structured approach to primary careers education. Programmes of Study and Knowledge Organisers All subjects have their own Programme of Study which ensure key sequential learning throughout the whole of JCA. This enables clarity of what, specifically, needs to be taught in each year group. These then feed into separate Knowledge Organisers which outline core knowledge for each subject in every year group. Programmes of Studies and Knowledge Organisers are all available on the ‘Curriculum’ section of the website. 14
Our curriculum is shared on twitter. Follow us: @JCAWakefield or search for #JCACurriculum Twitter 15
Jerry Clay Academy Jerry Clay Lane, Wrenthorpe Wakefield, West Yorkshire WF2 0NP 01924 303665 jcainfo@jerryclayacademy.wakefield.sch.uk
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