We are passionate in our aims to help our children to become real learners. We have developed a balanced, rich and inspiring curriculum which specifically meets the academic, personal and social needs of our pupils and has them at its heart.

We recognise that in a fast changing world, our learners will need to be able to work independently and with others.

We have worked together to identify 4 drivers which we feel must lie at the heart of our curriculum design to build upon our pupils’ strengths and experiences and address any deficits including social disadvantage.

Our curriculum drivers are:

• Fresh Experiences:  it is vital that we provide learning opportunities that take our pupils beyond Ravenscliffe. These ‘fresh experiences’ are aimed at developing semantic rather than purely episodic memory.
• Our Place in the World: Through this driver, pupils explore their own locality and beyond in terms of historical and current significance. They explore their responsibilities as local and global citizens.
• Possibilities: it is vital that our children’s minds are opened to the possibilities that exist for them in terms of, for example, careers, job opportunities and travel. In this way they will become more aspirational
• Equality and Diversity: understanding, appreciating and celebrating difference, particularly cultural as this is an area that our community has, in the past, struggled with; making sure everyone’s rights and needs are understood and addressed

Underpinning all of these is Social, Emotional, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural Development (SEMSC) 

We use the National Curriculum Programmes of Study as our core content.

Key, subject specific objectives and skills are repeated throughout each year and across each milestone to ensure that subject specific knowledge, understanding and skills are strengthened over time.

We ensure our curriculum is balanced through the provision of bespoke curriculum offers to support children’s wider development e.g. Nurture sessions; social skills groups; precision teaching; and through new experiences linked to each curriculum theme

The Holybrook curriculum has a strong focus on the development of key skills through which there must be progression to ensure that every child develops skills at an appropriate level and is challenged.

EYFS
In the Foundation Stage, we follow the EYFS curriculum, encouraging the children to be active learners. The children are encouraged through play and exploration to develop the skills that form a strong foundation for their future learning. This is supported with the provision of a range of real life experiences through educational visits and visitors in school, Focused activities, along with carefully planned and resourced continuous provision, provide our youngest children with a range of experiences which prepare them for learning in Year 1 and beyond.

Phonics
We teach synthetic phonics from Nursery onwards, using the Little Wandle programme. This approach continues until children’s phonics skills are secure and children demonstrate real fluency in reading.

Reading
The teaching of reading is supported by a bespoke reading scheme fully aligned – initially – to Little Wandle. Once children demonstrate secure fluency and comprehension, they progress to Accelerated Reader which, along with our well stocked library and classroom reading areas, provides a huge range of reading materials for our children to experience. Reading is taught throughout school as a discrete subject as well as being an integral part of English and Holybrook Curriculum lessons. Children are encouraged to read a range of challenging texts and develop a love of reading. These texts make links to learning in other areas of the curriculum. This is supported by adult-led small group, differentiated guided reading sessions. These sessions provide the opportunity for the class teacher to further develop children’s independent reading skills. Children are also identified for individual support and intervention, such as daily 1 to 1 reading.

Writing
The teaching of writing skills is explicit within English lessons and is supported by ‘Power of Reading’ strategies as well as the formal teaching of grammar punctuation and spelling.. These skills are further embedded across the curriculum through rich opportunities for their application in a range of contexts.

Mathematics
The teaching of Maths is based on the White Rose Maths Hub’s Mastery approach and is supported by our teaching of mental maths skills and our calculation policy. We aim to provide children with the ability to reason in a logical way and to apply mathematics through problem solving in real life contexts. We want to help children to see the links between maths and other subjects and deepen their understanding through investigations and application of maths across the curriculum.

English and Maths are taught both as discrete subjects daily and as an integral part of our Holybrook Curriculum.

In the Holybrook Curriculum, a number of   subjects (History, Geography, Art, , Design Technology, Drama) are taught in an integrated way.  By using the natural links between subjects and ideas, the learning becomes real and meaningful to our children.  We do not believe in contriving links but in making the most of these where they naturally exist. However, within the delivery of these ‘themes’ we make regular reference to the distinct subjects being taught.

Science, PE, PSHCE and Music are taught as stand-alone subjects.

In RE the children learn about 6 major religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism, following the agreed Bradford syllabus. This gives the children a moral understanding and knowledge of religious beliefs and practices to help them become tolerant, caring members of society

Curriculum Overview

For an overview of the curriculum for each year group please click on the ‘Annual Overview’ tab for each year group. If you would like any further information about the curriculum for your child’s year group please contact their class teacher, who will be happy to discuss it with you.