Broomfields Junior School

At Broomfields Junior School we carefully design, plan and implement a curriculum which provides breadth for every pupil:

At Broomfields Junior School, careful analysis and discussion about our pupils’ backgrounds, life experiences and culture has helped us to design a curriculum with three key priorities underpinning every subject area. We believe that by focusing on the following key priorities our children will be ready to successfully meet the challenges of the next stage of their education and their lives.

Our curriculum priorities are:

• Aspirations  – provide experiences which show children the wide range of possibilities available for their future.
• Tenacity and Resilience  - promote high levels of resilience, confidence and independence in children when tackling challenging activities
• Creativity – Use imaginative teaching strategies to promote high levels of enthusiasm for, participation in and commitment to learning

‘Together we learn, achieve and enjoy’

We have designed and planned our curriculum to offer a range of experiences which contribute to every child receiving a full and rich curriculum.  The range of experiences we offer support and champion our culture and ensures that our children benefit from a full range of academic, spiritual, moral, social and cultural activities.  These activities enrich their lives and those of our whole school community and make them proud of their British and global values and the society to which they belong and play an active part. We are proud that our curriculum gives our children the skills, confidence and self-belief to lead a happy and fulfilled life by encouraging them to aim high and work towards their goals and dreams in life.

At Broomfields Junior School  we carefully design, plan and implement a curriculum to provide balance for every pupil:

At Broomfields Junior School it is our underlying belief that every child should feel valued and experience the feeling of success and enjoyment in a wide range of curriculum areas. We believe that through the curriculum we can impact on children’s thinking and how they feel about themselves, so that they feel successful, confident, valued and ready to tackle any challenge they may face.

We have designed, organised and planned our curriculum to ensure every child receives an appropriate mix of academic and personal development which means that in practice our curriculum places equal importance on core and foundation subjects.

At Broomfields Junior School we place high priority on ensuring children’s physical and mental wellbeing are met. We understand that children will not be successful learners unless they are emotionally secure, therefore we carefully design our curriculum and adopt a flexible approach to timetabling to ensure that we can meet and respond to any issues and opportunities which may arise. Children’s physical and mental wellbeing are as valued and important as academic development.

We carefully monitor children’s progress with their personal development and our well planned and thoughtful approach to SMSC helps to ensure that every child is well cared for and supported.

Our balanced approach to the curriculum is not at the expense of high standards in core subject areas. High standards and enabling children to reach national expectations and above is of vital importance if they are to succeed at the next stage of their education and go on to achieve successful and fulfilling lives.

Our full and rich curriculum, with its excellent range of experiences, ensures that every pupil at Broomfields Junior School makes excellent progress both academically and personally. Our unique curriculum ensures that every child is given the opportunity to shine and flourish.

Our curriculum at Broomfields Junior School is carefully designed, organised and planned for depth of learning:

At Broomfields Junior School our definition of progress is as follows: the widening and deepening of essential knowledge, skills, understanding and learning behaviours.  We design, organise and plan our curriculum to ensure that children are not merely covering content, but achieving a depth to their learning which enables them to use their skills and understanding in all areas of the curriculum.

Our careful curriculum design and planning means that we build in many opportunities for repetition and practise opportunities for essential knowledge, skills and understanding in every subject. This ensures that children are able to revisit previous learning, which allows them to gradually develop a deeper understanding of the skills and processes within subjects, at their own pace and in the best possible way for each individual child.

Our curriculum is meticulously designed and planned to move the nature of children’s thinking to a higher order deep level of understanding rather than just acquiring new facts and knowledge.

Our Broomfields Junior School curriculum is planned to include:

• A list of the breadth of topics which will be covered
• The concepts learners should understand
• Criteria for progression of milestones within the concepts
• Criteria for depth of understanding (including knowledge, vocabulary, application)

The diagram below shows the model of our curriculum structure:

1. The curriculum breadth for each phase ensures teaching staff have clarity on coverage, based on the National Curriculum requirements.
2. Concepts are chosen to build conceptual understanding within subjects and are repeated many times in each topic and interwoven between topics.
3. Milestones define the standards for the key skills, knowledge and vocabulary being taught. The children are assessed against these milestones as either basic understanding, advanced understanding or deep understanding, through the use of high quality assessment for learning strategies.
4. Depth: The milestones will be assessed over a two-year cycle with the expectation that children move from having a basic (B) understanding to a more advanced (A) and deeper (D) understanding by the end of the two years. This basic level will involve a high degree of repetition so that knowledge enters learners' long-term memory; learning across each milestone at this level must not be rushed. Pupils will then demonstrate application of this knowledge and vocabulary through more advanced and deeper tasks, thus demonstrating true understanding.

Learning in each subject has been planned to ensure children build their knowledge, skills, vocabulary and understanding progressively from Y3 to Y6. We plan our curriculum in two phases, Phase 1 (Y3 & Y4) and Phase 2 (Y5 & Y6). Each phase and year group plan a long term plan for the academic term (see Long Term Plans). Every term provides lots of opportunities for our children to be immersed in the context of their learning. We use high quality and challenging texts in English teaching that are, when relevant, also related to the over-arching topic.  Displays in classrooms also echo the reading for the topic, allowing children to be fully engaged with the topics. This enables opportunities for in depth learning, development of vocabulary, knowledge and concepts.

Each topic begins with an opportunity for an assessment of prior knowledge and skills linked to the main subject driver. For example, history was taught in Autumn term, and at the beginning of Summer 1, the children will engage in retrieval tasks on all prior learning of the history they have covered. This will be conducted through fun retrieval activities designed to allow the teacher to assess how well the learners are coping with curriculum content and how well they are retaining previously taught content.

Remembering more of what you learn is essential, so every new topic is carefully planned to create memorable learning experiences which are also supported with educational visits and visitors to the school. Outdoor learning is also promoted throughout all subjects and we also deliver residential visits in Y5 and Y6.  These trips link to several areas of the curriculum: Physical Education (PE), Geography, Art and Personal and Physical development.

English (reading, writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation, handwriting and phonics), Maths, Science and Physical Education, are taught weekly, with links to the topic where relevant to enhance learning. Religious Education, All other subjects are taught either weekly of fortnightly depending on timetabling. Art and Design, Design and Technology, History and Geography are taught in focus units linked to the topics across the half term. This current blocking however, does include regular opportunities for children to review and revisit previously taught content. PHSE is taught discreetly as well as being planned for across the whole school topics and our school values. Our SEAL (Social, Emotional, Aspects of Learning) ambassadors work in each year group promoting our values and rewarding fellow pupils for their skills in this area. At Key Stage Two our children are taught French.  French is our language of choice due to it being the high school's main langauge taught. 

We teach the content as set out in the National Curriculum.  This document is attached below for your reference.

If you would like any further details on our school curriculum, please contact school using the contact forms.

Teachers are continually assessing children’s learning against the milestone indicators and the key knowledge set out in their planning document for every foundation subject, through high quality assessment for learning. Time for retrieval tasks is built in to enable teachers to assess how well the children have retained information from previous learning. They provide timely feedback to the children to check on understanding and ensure progress is made. Staff are supported with assessments through moderation and a team approach to ensure consistency. 

Our curriculum impact is measured throughout the unit of work based on the Milestone statements, with the vast majority of the pupils working within mastery.  This means that the children can recall their learning and apply it to other areas of the curriculum.  Those children with a deeper knowledge can then demonstrate a deeper understanding of the curriculum; sharing, coaching and mentoring others. 

Subject coordinators monitor their subjects within a planned cycle, atleast three times a year.   Alongside coordinator monitoring, we invite Governors into school to celebrate good practice, to meet with subject leaders and pupils.  Broomfields also facilitates Peer to Peer Reviews and specific subject ‘Deep Dives’ to continue to drive school improvement.

Our curriculum is designed to be accessed by all children who attend the school. We are committed to ensuring all children reach their full potential, regardless of ability, race, gender or cultural background. If we think it necessary to adapt some children's access to the curriculum, in order to meet their needs, then we do this in consultation with parents.

If children have special needs, our school does all it can to meet the individual needs, and we comply with the requirements set out in the  SEND Code of Practice. If a child displays signs of having a particular learning or physical need, then his/her teacher makes an assessment of this need. In most instances, the teacher is able to provide the resources and educational opportunities that meet the child's needs, within normal class organisation. The teacher will liaise with the SENDCO to seek advice and support.  If a child's need is more severe, we may involve the appropriate external agencies to support and in making recommendations and assessments. We always provide additional resources and support for children with special needs.

The school provides a Provision Map and an intervention plan for each of the children who are recognised as additional support. This sets out the nature of the special need, and outlines how the school will aim to address it. The intervention plan also sets out targets for improvement, so that we can review and monitor the progress of each child at regular intervals.  The progress of children on the SEND register are monitored closely and reports shared with governors termly.

Some children in our school have disabilities. We are committed to meeting the needs of these children, as we are to meeting the needs of all groups of children within our school. All reasonable steps are taken to ensure that these children are not placed at a substantial disadvantage compared with non-disabled children. Teaching and learning is appropriately modified for children with disabilities. For example, they may be given additional time to complete certain activities, or the curriculum or teaching materials may be adapted.