Curriculum Intent

Learning opens doors; learning changes lives.

Vision

At Earlham, we believe that all children deserve the very best education. All our pupils have the opportunity to achieve their full potential, so they can begin to choose their path in life and to flourish in the world.

Intent

Our curriculum is designed to provide our pupils with the foundations of a love of lifelong learning, to give them ‘powerful’ knowledge which enables them to engage with and communicate about the world beyond their lived experience, and to think analytically and critically about the world around them. 

Implementation

We teach each subject in discrete half-term blocks we call units of learning. You can see the curriculum intent and full curriculum map for each subject on the Subjects page.

Planning for knowledge

We follow the national curriculum. We have sequenced our curriculum to build on prior learning and extend and grow subject knowledge as pupils journey through the school. Each of our unit plans has a 'planning for knowledge' summary that shows the unit knowledge outcomes, vocabulary and progression standards, the prior learning pupils bring to the unit and the future learning this unit feeds into and supports.

We have prepared knowledge organisers for each unit of learning showing the key facts pupils need to know and retain at the end of each unit; these are sent home as part of our home-school link, and are used as a resource in class. Pupils are quizzed regularly throughout the year on the key facts, to ensure they have retained their learning and knowledge.

Impact

We assess the English and Maths learning and progress of our pupils against the standards set out in the National Curriculum and Key Stage 1 and 2 assessment guidance. The progression standards for all other subjects are set out in the Compass Eko Trust Non-Core Assessment Policy and based on the standards set by the national associations for teaching in each subject. Our Compass Eko Trust School Improvement Partner, Compass Eko Trust Executive Leaders, school governors and our own Senior Leadership Team all conduct regular learning walks and pupil conferences to check that our pupils are engaged in their learning, can talk about it, and have retained the key knowledge from each of our units of learning.

For more information about the attainment of our pupils, please visit the Data and Attainment page.

Our Diverse School

At Earlham, we are proud that we speak 39 different languages with over 90% of our pupils learning English as an additional language to their home language. We provide a welcoming, accepting environment, which acknowledges and celebrates children’s diversity. We strive to meet the needs of all of our children for whom English may be their second or even third language, while at the same time encourage confidence in using their home language at school to support and enable learning.

Our curriculum reflects all the cultures and religions of the community we serve. We actively build positive partnerships with parents and carers to support learning at home. We regularly celebrate our cultural diversity and we support and develop pupils’ appreciation and knowledge of British culture, manners and behaviour, while respecting and maintaining their indebtedness to their own.

We welcome new pupils who join our school  throughout the year, many of whom are new to the country, and new to English. During their first two weeks, new joiners are paired with a learning buddy, who helps them to settle in and make friends. If the new pupil is also new to English, we pair them with a buddy, who speaks the same language as them. The class teacher learns how to greet the pupil in their home language. We have identified language ambassadors who can buddy up with and provide invaluable input to support these pupils e.g. by translating, settling them in, reading with them, helping to fill in welcome packs and so on. After two weeks, our EAL lead checks in with the new pupils and parents and ensure that they are settling in well.

New pupils are interviewed and assessed as soon as possible so that they can be allocated to the correct intervention group. We run a language acquisition programme called ‘Racing to English’, which has been carefully tailored to match both the school’s and British values. We also run reading and writing intervention groups including synthetic phonics, colourful semantics and reading recovery, to support the accelerated progress of our EAL pupils.