Clee Hill Community Academy

At Clee Hill Community Academy, we aim for all our children to leave equipped with key skills, which enable them to be confident, respectful, skilful, ambitious and positive individuals, who are reflective, able to make good choices and have a thirst for life and all it has to offer.

We place emphasis on a curriculum that develops the whole child. Through our school values – respect, equality, courage, compassion, peace & self-belief- we ensure that the wellbeing of all members of the school community is at the centre of our life in school and the key to raising academic success. Our children gain a sound knowledge of their own value and purpose, with the ability to make choices and decisions in life that show their understanding of right and wrong.

At Clee Hill Community Academy we aim to provide an exciting and engaging curriculum which will inspire children to nurture a passion for learning. We have designed a curriculum for the children of Clee Hill Community Academy that will help them develop a love of learning and activate their enquiring minds. Our aim is to ensure that pupils have access to a curriculum which is rich in applied and 'built on' in a meaningful and inspiring context. We want to develop child who are thinkers and can discuss their learning using their subject knowledge, so that they can achieve their potential. Our curriculum aims to be diverse and inclusive and challenge pupils in term of their current thinking, offer experiences to develop their cultural capital and enable them to contribute positively to society It is planned with the needs of our pupils at its core with the intent of closing the gap between the advantage and disadvantage.

Our context rich curriculum, which has high expectations for all, is mapped to include full coverage of the National and EYFS curriculum. It provides a range of learning experiences for our children, which broaden their understanding of the Local, British and Global Community. Our curriculum offer is designed and adapted, in order to challenge, engage and motivate our learners to take responsibility for themselves and others. Our ultimate goal being that they progress academically and personally so that they become honest, successful and confident individuals, who make positive contributions to the community and society - both now and in the future. We have developed our curriculum so that it is designed to support children with retention of subject knowledge and to develop long-term memory skills.

We firmly believe that the driving force behind the delivery of an inspiring curriculum is high quality teaching and learning which includes a wide range of learning experiences, through real life and meaningful tasks. As a village school in rural Shropshire, our curriculum takes advantage of the local environment whilst appreciating the limitations of rural deprivation. It aims to provide opportunities to enrich the experiences alongside ensuring that they become caring and considerate citizens too. 

What are our key curriculum drivers and why have we chosen them? 

Our school has used local knowledge and reports to carefully consider what our children need to learn in relation to the context that they are growing up in.  The following aspects run as key drivers through our curriculum to ensure our specific pupil needs are met.  
 
Globally aware (environment): Research tells us that there has never been a more important time for young people to understand what is going on in the world. With good knowledge about global issues, our pupils will realise the importance of taking good care of our planet. We want them to have the confidence to travel and explore as they grow older, which will open up new opportunities for their futures. 

Culturally aware (Community): As our school and community is predominantly white British our children need to understand how Britain and other parts of the world are multi-cultural and why this should be celebrated. We aim to develop children’s understanding of national and international culture so that they are tolerant and respectful towards others. 

Self-aware (Personal, Social, Emotional):  Understanding more about themselves both physically and emotionally will allow our pupils to reflect and continuously improve. Increased levels of obesity nationally mean that our children need to be taught how to stay healthy and have daily opportunities to enjoy being active. We want our pupils to take responsibility for their actions, looking after themselves and others. 
 

Prepared for life (cross curricular links): We want children to be completely ready for the next stage in their education both spiritually and academically. They should have opportunities to develop their awareness of the possibilities for their future and have an idea of how to reach their goals. We aim to provide opportunities for the children to make real world connections in their learning and apply skills and strategies they learn in lessons. 

Ownership (voice of the child):   Providing opportunities for deeper thinking and talking and taking ownership of their own learning to mean a learner is motivated, engaged and self-directed. This means they can monitor their own progress, reflect on their learning and start to develop learning strategies which are effective to them. 

The school curriculum has been designed to ensure a broad range of coverage which builds on the knowledge, understanding and skills of all children, whatever their starting points, as they progress through each Key Stage. The curriculum incorporates the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum and other experiences and opportunities which best meet the learning and developmental needs of the pupils in our school. The aim of our curriculum is for pupils to have the requisite skills to be successful, independent and motivated learners in readiness for their next stage of education. 

The school uses a cross-curricular approach to teaching and learning. This means that skills, knowledge and understanding across a range of subjects are brought together and form a topic.  Within the topic, children are able to practise and apply their reading, maths and English skills in other subject areas.  

We recognise everyone as a unique individual with their own ambitions, skills and dreams. As a growth mindset school, children are encouraged to embrace challenge, persist in the face of setback, and see effort as the path to mastery. 

For all year groups, we have overviews that map out the knowledge and skills progression of the curriculum offer; these include all the subjects in the National Curriculum so that our children access a broad and balanced curriculum offer. The curriculum offer is implemented in a consistent manner by ensuring that excellence in teaching and enjoyment in learning go hand in hand and lay the foundations for success in later life. Our curriculum is based on the substantive knowledge which includes the components (the building blocks) to support learning.  Once these components have been acquired by the children, they are then able to use and apply them in a range of ways. Once substantive knowledge has been formed, our children are exposed to disciplinary knowledge, where they are able to apply their prior knowledge such as exploring how historians investigate the past through use of source work.

Starting with a knowledge rich content, the curriculum is carefully organised in a coherent way, to ensure that learning is built upon. Using our curriculum maps as a starting point, we develop our medium-term and short-term planning to ensure coherent coverage of key knowledge, skills and concepts and clear progression routes over a sequence of lessons. This allows for prior learning to be systematically built upon and key knowledge to be revisited. For each subject, planning is supported by the progression of knowledge and skills so that lessons give children the opportunity to use and apply the knowledge and skills they are developing so that they know more and understand more. This is monitored by subject leaders and links to the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Policy. Curriculum planning is supported by identified quality texts, which are selected to stimulate children’s interests, to give a context for the learning and to make meaningful cross-curricular links to ensure transferable knowledge.

Across the curriculum, children are given regular opportunities to explore, question, investigate, evaluate, and reflect on their learning. These crucial experiences strengthen children’s subject knowledge and embed life-long skills for our children.

Due to mixed age classes, a two-year rolling programme is used:

• 2023 – 2024 -– Cycle B
• 2024- 2025 – Cycle A

Impact

The impact of our curriculum is that children are:

• able to read fluently, have sound comprehension skills and display a love of reading.
• academically and personally prepared for the next phase of their education and have high aspirations for their future.
• able to reflect on their learning and identify their next steps.
• able to recall knowledge and confidently utilise their skills across all areas of the curriculum.
• making good progress in all subjects through our logically sequenced curriculum which helps them embed and remember their learning over time.
• taught age-appropriate objectives that enable them to achieve age expected standards. If they are not working at this level, they are well supported to ensure they are making progress from their starting point.
• respectful and positive individuals with a clear understanding of important values. 
• highly motivated to succeed and achieve their personal goals.
• motivated by a strong sense of right and wrong and make decisions for the right reasons and in the best interests of their community.
• equipped to demonstrate resilience and have the ability to persevere, when they encounter challenges.
• able to access the help and support they need to keep themselves safe.
• socially, morally, spiritually and culturally responsible and aware.
• always aspiring to be the best that they can be