Curriculum Design and Approach
Curriculum Intent
At Endeavour Academy we carefully design, plan and implement a curriculum which provides breadth, balance and depth of learning for every pupil.
Breadth: Careful reflection and discussion about our pupils’ backgrounds, life experiences and culture has helped us to design a full and rich curriculum underpinned by three key priorities.
- Aspirations –build cultural capital and show our learners the wide range of possibilities available for their future in order to raise aspirations.
- Initiative - Equip learners with the drive and skills to become independent and resourceful learners.
- Whole child – build academic, physical and mental well-being
We believe that by focusing on these key priorities our children will be ready to successfully meet the challenges of the next stage of their education and their lives.
Balance: At Endeavour it is our underlying belief that every child should feel valued and experience the feeling of success in a wide range of curriculum areas. In practice our curriculum places equal importance on core and foundation subjects ensuring that every child is given the opportunity to shine and flourish. At Endeavour Academy children’s physical and mental wellbeing are as valued and important as academic development. We understand that children will not be successful learners unless they are emotionally secure. Our integrated approach to SMSC helps to ensure that every child is well cared for and supported.
You can see our integrated approach to SMSC across the curriculum here:
SMSC
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 Endeavour Academy makes progress both academically and personally.
Depth: At Endeavour Academy our definition of progress is the widening and deepening of essential knowledge, skills, understanding and learning behaviours. 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.
If you would like to know more about the curriculum your child is following, please speak with your child’s class teacher who will be happy to give you further information
Curriculum Organisation
At Endeavour Academy, the teaching of English and Mathematics occurs in the morning sessions and the full range of foundation subjects and science are taught through a thematic approach in the afternoon.
Our approach to the teaching of phonics and reading
At Endeavour Academy we use Floppy Phonics from Oxford Reading Tree to deliver phonics teaching in the EYFS and KS1. In Reception and Year 1, phonics is taught in a structured session in which children revisit sounds they already know, learn new sounds, practise using those sounds and then apply them in reading and writing.
Opportunities for teaching reading happen throughout the school day. These involve exploration of a whole class texts in English lessons, daily guided reading using the reading gems approach by One Education to teach targeted reading skills and independent reading. Children are provided with a school reading book from the Oxford Reading Tree scheme and have ready access to class reading areas stocked with a wide variety of high quality picture books, poetry, novels and non-fiction texts.
Our approach to the teaching of English
English is a means of communication, be it verbal, written or read. It connects all areas of learning and is taught and modelled daily from EYFS to Y6. We use the Power of Reading texts and resources to create sequences of lessons which expose our children to quality texts, enable them to develop their reading comprehension skills, grow their vocabulary, develop grammar knowledge and spelling skills and produce quality pieces of writing as a result.
Teachers at Endeavour Academy:
- foster an enthusiasm for and love of reading and writing for life through the careful selection of texts to engage learners
- provide a stimulating, inclusive and language rich environment, where speaking and listening, reading and writing are taught and modelled explicitly
- provide an environment where children are encouraged to construct, deconstruct and convey meaning in reading and writing, using both fiction and non-fiction texts
- provide working walls in KS1 and 2 to enable children to have visual prompts to support each English unit
- provide opportunities for pupils to reflect, analyse and evaluate language so that they become confident, competent and expressive users of the language
- encourage children to have fluent and legible handwriting
- provide opportunities for speaking in front of audiences with strong links to drama and ICT
- make connections between English and other curriculum areas to reinforce and consolidate key skills
Our approach to the teaching of Mathematics
At Endeavour Academy we believe that mathematics is an essential tool for everyday life. Mathematics teaches us how to make sense of the world around us through developing the ability to calculate, reason and to solve problems. We aim to develop a positive attitude towards mathematics from EYFS to Y6. We recognise the importance of promoting enjoyment and enthusiasm for learning through practical activity, exploration and discussion; enabling children to become confident learners of mathematics. We use the DfE recommended ‘Power Maths’ small steps planning to develop sequences of lessons which enable children to develop fluency with knowledge which they can then deepen through planned opportunities for problem solving and reasoning.
When you enter classrooms at Endeavour Academy, you will see:
- High quality teaching delivering appropriately challenging work for all individuals.
- Problem solving and reasoning embedded across the whole curriculum, with an emphasis on children explaining their thinking and using accurate mathematical vocabulary.
- The importance of the rapid recall of number facts including times tables, number bonds, doubles and halves.
- Consistent images and models and high quality concrete resources, including Numicon, Cuisenaire and a variety of other representations.
- Children using efficient written methods for calculation.
- Every child being pushed to achieve and realise their full potential.
- Children being given the opportunities to learn collaboratively, solving problems together always with individual accountability.
- Precision teaching based on accurate assessment: assessment for learning done in real time validated by assessment papers and team scrutiny.
- Real time feedback and swift, precision intervention to close any gaps.
- A love of maths including the use of Times Table Rock Stars to encourage children to take part in maths at home.
- Teachers using high quality questioning to probe understanding and encourage mathematical talk.
- Working Walls which reflect the current learning and act as a learning aid, they include a mixture of adult and child created learning.
- Distributed leadership of the subject to ensure a breadth of expertise and maximum capacity to improve standards.