Curriculum

Our Intent

At Downton, we value each child as an individual with a unique potential for learning. Our aim is to enable each child to participate in current and future society as a responsible self-confident citizen. We promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical qualities of all pupils. We believe that an effective curriculum offers knowledge, skills, understanding and progression.

Our curriculum is designed with these principles in mind: it is personalised to Downton reflecting the background and experience of our pupils. It celebrates the unique and historical village which our school is placed. Learning about the historical and geographical village of Downton and the local area, is interwoven through planning ensuring that our pupils can celebrate, retain traditions and compare similarities and differences with other areas and cultures, as our learning widens.

Inspired by the parable of the mustard seed, we recognise that our pupils are all a part of a global community. Our aim is to help the children gain a sense of place and understanding that they place play in its future. As a result, an integral aspect of our curriculum design is that it is also increasingly outward facing, setting learning in global contexts wherever possible; it celebrates diversity to emphasise unity; yet it is rooted in authenticity and context to Downton so that learning is relevant.

We also recognise that children cannot aspire to things they have never encountered. We will work to broaden our children’s horizons, expanding their knowledge of the world by nurturing their interests as well as encouraging fearlessness of what is new or unknown.

We define curriculum as the totality of a child’s experience at Downton Primary School ensuring that they are secondary school ready when they leave us. This includes not only what but how the child learns.

Implementation

At Downton Primary School, we have designed a curriculum which is ambitious for all children – ensuring that is underpinned by enrichment which promotes high aspirations, knowledge and global awareness.

We have developed an outstanding curriculum that helps all children to succeed in their academic and personal development. Through our curriculum and teaching practices, we build the knowledge, skills and cultural capital to enable pupils to become informed, articulate and empowered citizens.

To ensure the most disadvantaged pupils in our school have the best opportunity to thrive academically, our Pupil Premium Strategy focuses on number fluency, reading, vocabulary acquisition and mental well-being so that all pupils can access the curriculum. Similarly, we closely map out our provision for our SEND pupils, so that they gain the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in life.

We follow these principles when planning our curriculum by:

Ensuring that the curriculum is planned and sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before, and towards defined end points.
Standards and clarity of progression are at the centre of our curriculum planning and design ensuring the level of challenge and expectation is high in all subject areas.
Ensuring the integrity of the subject is guaranteed with the curriculum supporting pupils’ changes in long-term memory.
Focusing on subject disciplines even when topics are taught.
Within each curriculum area each aspect of the subject is built upon within main themes, for example, locational knowledge in geography.
Identifying ‘forever facts’ as essential knowledge.
Using our local context and filling the gaps from pupils’ backgrounds.
Ensuring the curriculum is engaging through inspiring resources and delivery
Adopting mastery approach for subject-specific knowledge

Informed

Big Idea – (what is the aim of the learning journey and how does it connect to big world ideas?)
Knowledge (national curriculum content) structured to build upon and extend prior learning.

Articulate

The promotion of strong oracy skills is a priority for our children, as many enter school with limited vocabulary and practice in speaking. This focus runs throughout our curriculum, because children must be able to talk about what they have learned in a knowledgeable and articulate way.
Planned opportunities for language development including key vocabulary, sentence stems and discussion points are embedded in all subjects.
Opportunities to discuss, debate, reason and share views, learning and ideas build confidence and deepen understanding.

Empowered

Values – British and school linked to the Rights of the Child and the Global Goals for Sustainable Development (What kind of person do I want to be? What kind of society do I want? How can I affect change?)
Reading is the gateway to pupils learning. To ensure all our pupils are able to access the full curriculum, we place a strong focus on early reading and vocabulary development right from the start.
Skills and characteristics (reasoning, critical curiosity, motivation and resilience)
Inclusive design to ensure all pupils can access, benefit from and relate to their learning.
Enrichment (opportunities to bring it to life and make it relevant).

Some areas of study, including Maths, History and Geography are taught discretely and we use a number of proven, evidence-based schemes of work to provide high-quality learning experiences such as Read Write Inc, White Rose Maths and CUSP.

Impact

By the end of each phase—EYFS and KS1, Years 3 and 4, and finally, Years 5 and 6—many pupils achieve sustained mastery of our curriculum content. They retain their learning, apply it fluently, and some demonstrate a deeper level of understanding.

We closely monitor pupils' progress to ensure they receive the right level of challenge and support, helping them meet and exceed our curriculum expectations.

We measure the impact of our curriculum in various ways, including: