Our Curriculum Intent: what are we trying to achieve?

At The Berkeley Academy our vision is ‘to equip all our children with the knowledge, understanding and enquiry skills to embrace lifelong learning, achieve their personal best and advance their social, emotional and physical well-being.’ 

The aim of the curriculum at The Berkeley is to ensure that our children live out the school mission statement: ‘We STRIVE to do our best.’  We want to provide opportunities for children to develop independence, confidence, and be successful learners with high aspirations who know how to make a positive contribution to their community and wider society.

As a school we are fully committed to developing each child’s unique potential as well as encouraging teamwork within a secure and caring environment. We aim to use a range of sources to meet the needs of the curriculum and provide an exciting and enlightening learning experience for our children, maximising the opportunities for enquiry-based learning.  We believe that our children should not only have success reaching their best academically, but also develop a thirst for knowledge, foster a love of learning and leave our school with exceptional independent learning skills.

The children of The Berkeley Academy are happy learners who work hard to reach the challenges set by their teachers and have a voice in their learning journey. Excellent teaching and learning give children opportunities to be successful in a creative, safe, calm environment where classrooms and other learning spaces promote creativity and high aspiration. We encourage our children to have resilience and to be leaders of their own learning. We expect high standards in both work and behaviour, and we want the children to enjoy their learning and tackle their work with enthusiasm.

Our Curriculum Implementation: how are subjects taught?

We have designed our own Berkeley curriculum which is appropriate for our children and builds on prior learning from EYFS to the end of KS2. This enables all children to receive high quality teaching with learning carefully sequenced in order to deepen understanding of key concepts. This is consolidated through regular opportunities to revisit prior learning in order to help them to learn more and remember more.  This sequenced knowledge and skill-based curriculum focuses on Depth, Breadth and Balance.

Depth:

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.

Breadth:

By carefully analysing the needs of the children of The Berkeley Academy, curriculum priorities have been developed that have helped us to design a broad curriculum which focuses on six key areas underpinning every subject area. We believe that our curriculum offer enables our children to grow as leaners, encounter new experiences with endeavour and confidence and be ready to successfully meet the challenges of the next stage of their education and their lives.

Our curriculum offer:

• Reading
• Quality Teaching
• Diversity
• Learning Journey
• Lasting Memories
• Well-being

Using these six key drivers, we have created a bespoke curriculum that combines essential core skills and knowledge with the opportunity for children to think and learn creatively.  The Berkeley curriculum provides children with the opportunity and space to develop a genuine depth of knowledge whilst also allowing them to develop the skills they need as 21st century learners.

Pupils work towards an authentic outcome, which places it in a real-life context, invites evaluation and gives purpose. We continually strive to bring real-life experiences and opportunities into the curriculum and immerse the children and make learning relevant. Each term, the pupils build on and learn new knowledge and skills. Enrichment activities are key to the learning that takes place. These may be visits or visitors to the school and form an integral part of the curriculum.

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 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 STRIVE towards being the best they can be.

Balance:

It is our underlying belief that every child should feel valued and experience the feeling of success in a wide range of curriculum areas. We believe that through the curriculum we can impact on how children feel about themselves, so that they feel clever, confident and ready to tackle any challenge they may face.

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

At The Berkeley Academy 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 which may arise. Children’s social, 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 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 full and happy lives and careers. Our full and rich curriculum, with its excellent range of experiences, ensures that every pupil at The Berkeley makes excellent progress both academically and personally. Our unique curriculum ensures that every child is given the opportunity to do their best.

Our Curriculum Impact: what is the impact of the curriculum on the children?

The main source of impact will always remain the quality and breadth of work seen in pupil’s books and the learning environment. As an Academy, we are striving to raise the expectation of learners and the quality of work they produce from a rounded and connected curriculum. We ensure there are always opportunities for application of learning within and across subject disciplines.

The impact of our curriculum should also be measured by assessment procedures, which allow us to measure outcomes against all schools nationally. Learning is regularly assessed to provide feedback to learners and to address any misconception. Teachers then plan appropriate challenge in future lessons building on new knowledge acquired and retained to ensure that children learn more and remember more. Summative assessment may occur at the end of a unit of work, during assessment weeks each term or at the end of the key stage. Formative assessment, used daily, helps children to paint a clear picture of their strengths as well as gaps in learning. Teachers use a range of formative assessment strategies that include quizzes, summary tasks, mini presentations and the use of information technology.  At The Berkeley, the quality of teaching and learning enables all children to achieve academically above national expectations regardless of individual need. 

Furthermore, the impact will be measured by how effectively it helps our pupils develop into well-rounded individuals who embody our values and carry with them the knowledge, skills and attitudes, which will make them lifelong learners, and valuable future citizens.  Our pupils will:

• Be able to make connections and see patterns within all areas of learning so that they can then be applied.
• Be able to reason and solve problems by using prior learning.
• Develop resilience and confidence in areas that challenge them
• Develop a life-long love of learning
• Create lasting memories
• Understand and appreciate the impact individuals have had in shaping the world we live in today
• Be equipped for life
• Be supported to enhance their own well-being
• Have accessed a broad and balanced curriculum