As a school, we have taken into account the starting point of all our pupils and follow a curriculum with some bespoke elements, which meets the needs of the children, our school and our locality. This includes a significant focus on the development and acquisition of vocabulary and a rigorous approach to the development of reading throughout the school. We present our children with an expansive curriculum, rich in the development of long-term knowledge, aimed at ensuring that children are given a secure understanding of the world in which they live and how civilisations from the past and around the world have impacted our way of life in Chadderton. In addition, we provide our children with a well-planned program of experiences aimed at developing their cultural capital and aspirations for the future.
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At Yew Tree Community School, we ensure that we provide a progressive and coherent curriculum that builds on prior knowledge, creating links across the curriculum, to embed learning. We look at specific substantive concepts within subjects to ensure that there is a narrative within our curriculum which can be followed when moving between topics. For example, in history the concepts of power and human achievements run throughout a pupils’ time at the school, frequently being re-visited in different topics. By doing this, all teachers are fully aware of the end of year expectations for each subject within their year group and how their year group fits into the long-term plan and priorities of the school.
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We have a highly ambitious curriculum at Yew Tree and expect the highest outcomes for all, including those with specific SEND needs. We immerse the children in a wealth of high-quality texts linked to the topics. This is to create incidental knowledge links and ensure that they are reading widely and are exposed to good language models. Alongside this, we deliver our lessons in a way in which children are given the best opportunity to retain the information from the topic. For instance, the curriculum disciplines of history, geography and science are blocked into larger intensive blocks. By doing this we allow the children time and space to be immersed in the learning, vocabulary and text. This gives them opportunities to work collaboratively with their peers and discuss key concepts as a class at an in-depth level. In other subjects, our curriculum allows pupils to take time to develop skills and knowledge across an entire half-term, which means an increased amount of time and focus spent on these areas of the foundation subjects. Finally, we encourage the children to think independently and present their knowledge in a variety of different ways developing both written and oral skills. As a school, we expect the highest standards for the pupils within the school in everything they do.
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As a school, we do not narrow the curriculum. We value the importance that the non-core subjects have on the cognitive development of the children and the aspirational outcomes for pupils. All the children, throughout their time at Yew Tree, will be exposed to a broad and rich curriculum aimed at developing their cultural capital, knowledge and aspirations for the future. Pupils will leave Yew Tree Community School with a life-long love of learning and be fully prepared for their next step in education and later life.
