Fostering curiosity and ambition, the Heron Curriculum will ensure learners gain the knowledge and skills required to be successful participants in our diverse and modern world.

Our curriculum begins with questions.  This is how we relate taught content to the real world. It is how we address a common query from children: “Why are we learning this?”  The knowledge in each subject is carefully sequenced and the distinct disciplines of historians, geographers, musicians, artists, scientists, athletes, writers and mathematicians are placed at the heart of our lessons. Reading is the key that unlocks learning. Teachers forge together teaching and learning for individual subjects and shape them into coherent units of learning that address questions about ourselves and the world we live in.  The values of our school community are represented in these questions (these are ‘Heron Questions’) and this makes our learning journeys relevant to our community of learners and thinkers.

We put children at the centre of their learning and place great importance on nurturing the skills and attitudes of independence, resourcefulness, resilience and co-operation.  We value academic success very highly and provide a rich and stimulating curriculum that challenges and stretches learners. We are rigorous in our approach and have high aspirations for all our children. We aim to provide children with the best possible learning environment and opportunities to enable them to fulfil their potential by developing their strengths and recognising where they need to improve further.

Implementation: 

Many subjects are taught in a cross-curricular way and we provide opportunities for real and purposeful learning. Children will pose, investigate and answer conceptual questions that bring the taught curriculum into context and make it relevant and real to our school community.

High quality texts are the means by which we access the knowledge contained in the national curriculum.  They are how we bring it to life and make it relatable and inspirational. We plan teaching and learning around a high-quality children’s book. For example, a geography unit on continents might begin with ‘Lost and Found’ where the character journeys to the South Pole with a penguin. Work on World War Two might be built around Letters from the Lighthouse, the story of a child who is evacuated. In this way, by identifying with the characters in the story, the children are able to connect with the events they are learning about, which otherwise could remain very abstract. We also use texts as models for the children’s writing. This could be studying the writer’s use of figurative language to introduce metaphors, or it could be reading the diary of an explorer to help children understand the key points and structure of a journal.

Our pupils are taught the meta-cognitive skills that enable them to be successful learning through our “Moor Learning Powers” and so they develop their capabilities as self-managers, independent enquirers, team workers, creative thinkers and reflective learners.

We organise the national curriculum into progressive units of learning so that pupils build cultural capital incrementally. The values of our school community reflect British values and are woven into our school curriculum.  These golden threads are addressed as “Heron Questions” throughout the school year and revisited each year in new ways as pupils progress through our school.

   >>www.gov.uk - National Curriculum<<

More information about individual subjects can be found in the SUBJECTS menu on the left.  The curriculum for each term can be found under the relevant year group.