King's Hedges Educational Federation

Our Curriculum

Kings Hedges Curriculum

'Kings Hedges Education' (our curriculum) is ambitious and designed to give all pupils the knowledge, skills and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. The curriculum and its delivery are designed to support pupils to remember long term the content they have been taught and to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts so that they can apply their knowledge and skills with increasing fluency and independence. KHEd (King's Hedges Education) is coherently planned and sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge and skills for future learning and employment. Our ambitious curriculum is designed and delivered to meet the needs of all pupils.

Intent

At King’s Hedges Educational Federation we believe it is every child’s right to be successful throughout life. We know all of our children can thrive, however many of them are disadvantaged. We overcome the barriers by giving them a varied educational offer to enable them to be successful, and we rise to the challenge that they can. We want all of our pupils to go to secondary school and beyond with the highest quality, all round education. We strive for our children to be the best that they can be; to ensure they do this we pride ourselves in providing the highest quality learning experiences.

The following are at the heart of what we offer:

Quality first teaching of reading, writing and maths is at the core of our curriculum as they are key to enabling all to flourish. We teach them as systematically and effectively as possible so that the children can then use these skills to learn about the world around them. We believe that the sooner the children can read fluently, the sooner they will develop a love of reading. The sooner they can write fluently, the sooner they will enjoy expressing their ideas. The sooner they understand fluency and maths skills, the sooner they can enjoy applying it to real life problem solving.
We provide the children with an ambitious curriculum that enables them to be informed communicators. When our children transition to secondary school, we know they will be interested and knowledgeable because they can have a conversation about real life.
Social skills and moral values are fully embedded for our children. They are integrated in to everything we do and all staff invest in our approach; that every second really does matter for our children. The children leave us being accepting and tolerant of others' differences, showing equality and diversity.

With this in place, we feel the children will have a strong grounding for their next step in education and future life.

'Curriculum provision is broad, balanced and enriched by many exciting and engaging activities before, during and after school. This contributes strongly to pupils’ thirst for learning and the good progress that most make. Themes and topics, which include trips to places of interest, make learning relevant and provide further interest.'

OFSTED 2019

Implementation

We implement our curriculum based on the view that we want to teach basic skills as efficiently as possible so that the children become fluent (transferred into the long-term memory). This way all children can have full access to the whole, knowledge-rich curriculum, by being able to apply their reading, writing and maths in different contexts. Our curriculum is taught through 'Themes', which are planned and learning is sequences throughout the school to ensure progression and coverage - core learning is outlined in the 'Knowledge Organisers. Themes are taught using the following techniques:

Build on prior learning and link learning where it has the greatest impact on acquisition of knowledge and skills;
Pre-teaching the vocabulary and core knowledge needed to access the theme successfully;
Interleave learning, until the knowledge is embedded in long term memory;
'Big Bang' events take place at the start of the theme to ensure the children have an emotional connection and experience to connect with;
Modelling of high quality expectations - use of 'My turn, together, your turn' to embed knowledge, pronunciation and vocabulary;
Carefully considered use of scaffolding (in Adaptive Teaching Groups) - leading to all pupils producing a high quality, independent outcome. We adapt effectively for all learning but particularly for the children with SEND, who are vulnerable or those who are working at greater depth;
Use of assessment for learning (retrieval practice) - questioning the children throughout to ensure fluency (accuracy and speed) and secure understanding;
Well-paced lessons to ensure core knowledge is embedded and built upon;
We decide what the children need to know (LI) and share with the children how they will be successful (S/C) and ensure there is no cognitive overload;
Make meaningful cross-curricular links (through reasoning) to embed the connections between subjects and themes for children;
Carefully plan the timetable to ensure that every second counts for children to learn more or remember more.

'The work to support pupils' personal development and welfare is outstanding.'

OFSTED 2019

Impact

With our excellent curriculum offer (King's Hedges Education), most and an increasing number of children meet ARE. The impact of our curriculum is measured in the following ways:

Government testing and assessment at the end of Key Stage, phonics screening, Early Years Foundation Stage (GLD), and year four multiplication tests;
Our own procedures of testing and teacher assessment (termly) - monitoring both attainment and progress in all areas of the curriculum through data analysis of year groups, subjects and key groups within the school;
Marking linked to the new learning being taught and children responding to 'Improvement Points' by addressing - misconceptions, errors, gaps in knowledge and next steps given;
Monitoring of high quality teaching and learning by all leaders (observations, learning walks, book looks, talking to pupils, learning environment checks);
Well rounded, personable & successful children, who can hold a conversation on themes they have been taught and make connections in their learning;
The behaviour and attitudes of pupils - being resilient, reflective and kind;
Commitment and hard work of our staff and pupils;
Year six's readiness for secondary school and the successful transition for them;
Pupil voice.