Curriculum Overview

The power of our inclusive curriculum rests in our determination that all children enjoy a wide range of subjects and experiences. For young people attending our academy we provide an accessible and enjoyable educational experience that ensures academic success, develops life-long skills, and offers rich experience. An Outwood education at our academy supports every child and young person to grow as well-rounded and responsible citizens who can fulfil their potential and ability to play a positive role in society.

Across our curriculum each year is designed to build to the next. Curriculum planning focuses subject and core content knowledge and skills to aid our students’ knowledge recall, build their subject fluency and deepen their understanding. Our expert curriculum planning across all subjects and the wider curriculum for example Relationship, Sex and Health Education clearly state what children learn across the year and throughout their time at Outwood. Our knowledge rich curriculum supports our students to access their next steps in education at every level as we believe the longer one continues in education and/or training the greater the reward in health, happiness and social mobility.

Our ambitious curriculum matches the demands of the national curriculum at each stage so that our students can meet and exceed age related national expectations. Across our curriculum we clearly map our expectation of the rich knowledge and understanding that is required in each subject. Teachers effectively adapt schemes of learning to meet the needs of students in their classes. Across the wide range of subjects offered we robustly plan our progressive delivery to best secure our students learning and academic achievement. We value the importance of the secondary core and EBacc subjects etc and ensure our students’ entitlement to these. Our curriculum model is bespoke to our academy balancing breadth and depth with context and flexibility whilst also taking into consideration any local or regional influences alongside parent and student choice within our offer.

The quality of our Trust’s approach to curriculum was praised by Ofsted in its Summary Evaluation of our Trust in June 2019:

“An extensive curriculum review, involving staff from schools across the Trust, has resulted in a knowledge-rich curriculum model which extends from early years to post-16. This matches the demands of the national curriculum at relevant key stages. While there is a Trust-wide expectation of the knowledge and understanding that is required in each subject, there is also autonomy for subject leaders and teachers to adapt schemes of learning to meet the needs of pupils in each school. Trust leaders are ambitious for the academic achievement of pupils in a wide range of subjects. A higher-than-average proportion of pupils, study humanities, the arts and languages at key stage 4. Year-on-year, the proportion of pupils studying the EBacc is increasing.”

We know that a great school is only sustainable within a happy and healthy community and that we must all work together to tackle the causes of under-acheivement and disadvantage. We work hard to ensure that our drive for improvement and the curriculum we offer is rooted in our community and our aim to be an inclusive academy in the heart of our communities where all children are cared for and where standards are raised and lives transformed.

The high-quality education experience we provide is empowered by an ambitious, knowledge rich curriculum that enables all children and young people to achieve well. Our curriculum aims to narrow gaps in achievement for all student groups, enable access and prepare our children and young people well for their future steps. Our curriculum aims to ensure learning can flourish by:

1. Fostering an inclusive culture of responsibility, respect and safety with an ethos of praise, pride and purpose.
2. Providing excellent teaching accross a broad and balanced range of subjects to engage our learners.
3. Promoting mental wellbeing encouraging positive relationships and acceptance.
4. Encouraging healthy lifestyle choices, self-regulation and personal accountability.
5. Appreciating diversity and difference and valuing tolerance, democracy, liberty and law.
6. Recognising issues that affect our world and acknowledging actions that can be taken.
7. Supporting students' ambitions, and interests to open future study and career pathways.

We foster a welcoming culture of safety, responsibility and respect ensuring a positive climate where all members of our school community feel safe, comfortable, and accepted. We believe our students are more able to do well and achieve their full potential when they experience this positive supportive climate. Within this climate all relationships are founded in mutual acceptance and inclusion. This is modelled by all so that our culture of respect becomes the norm and our ethos of praise, pride and purpose allows students' learning to flourish. These values are built into our wider curriculum delivery.

Our curriculum across each phase is designed to be broad and ambitious reflecting national curriculum expectations and enabling students to hone their literacy and numeracy skills and deepen their subject study across their schooling. Our schemes of work are well sequenced clearly identifying what students should know and be able to do by the end of each unit, term, year and stage in preparation for their next steps. Assessment is used to address gaps in students’ knowledge and understanding to best secure key concepts, important knowledge and skills and move our students’ learning forward.

Our curriculum design ensures it best meets the needs of our students and supports the social and economic priorities of our locality. We build local interest into subject topics and promote relevant focuses and issues that reflect our aims. The structure of our curriculum delivery puts our student first, raises standards and transforms lives.

We believe sustainability is now an essential natural part of 21st century education. Our Trust strives to act in an ethical, transparent and responsible way and our academy provides local and Trust wide events to highlight issues and engage our students in considering and responding to our shared future practice.