Curriculum Statement

If you require any additional information about the curriculum at Bovington Academy, please contact Pash Ward

(Curriculum Lead)

pward@bovington-aspirations.org

Our vision is to deliver an authentic education for the 21st century for children from the age of 4-11.
The aim of the curriculum is to ensure all children are inspired with a passion for learning and achieve high levels of academic success in a broad range of subjects whilst at the same time equipping them with the knowledge and skills required to play an active and successful role in today’s highly competitive and fast-changing world.

Central to the philosophy of the curriculum delivered in Bovington Academy is to provide an authentic education for the world today with insight in the world and core knowledge as critical foundation so that all children can participate in the full richness of the human experience. To this end, the curriculum allows for the development of the knowledge, skills and qualifications required for success in the world today. Additionally, all children in Bovington Academy learn in a challenging, engaging and supportive environment through a well structured and purposeful curriculum which encourages creativity, celebrates diversity and utilize knowledge, skills and cultural experiences from within the local community and beyond. We aim for our children to be active and productive citizens in modern Britain.

In applying knowledge to real-world contexts and allowing young learners to take the lead in using this knowledge, it allows them to find solutions and to deepen their learning. Our curriculum has been developed to meet the needs of children so that they have both embodied and institutional cultural capital with Employability and Power Skills as the centrepiece of our educational provision.

Implementation of the curriculum

Our curriculum is rooted in the development of knowledge, the ability to apply knowledge and the acquisition of future skills. This is achieved in a number of ways, for children in year 1-6 they are taught maths and English discreetly in the morning. The afternoon’s are mainly set aside for Applied Learning (AL) assignments (please see further details below). During AL, children focus on a driving question which pose simply stated, real world scenarios and experiences. They pose predicaments that children find interesting and actually want to answer. The question drives children to discuss, inquire, and investigate the topic. It then pushes the children towards a final production or solution.

All our teachers have a common understanding of the academy’s curriculum aims and assessment is used well to check understanding and inform teaching. Teacher subject knowledge is used to promote discussions, systematically check understanding, address identified misconceptions and adapted these to address children’s needs. SEND and Disadvantaged (including service children) are targeted to achieve well due to the curriculum meeting their needs.

Applied Learning:

At Bovington Academy, following the Aspirations No Limits curriculum model, our curriculum ensures that ALL learning and acquisition of knowledge is applied in an authentic and purposeful way. This provides our pupils with the opportunity to develop their ‘power skills’: collaboration, communication, critical thinking & problem solving, creativity and character (Learning To Deep Learn).

When acquiring new knowledge, pupils will be given the opportunity to apply their learning in authentic and purposeful ways through exploring Driving Questions. This may be through written work, presentation, reasoning, justification, problem solving, investigation, the creation of digital products, discussion or debate, as examples.

An example of Applied Learning could include pupils using their knowledge and understanding of coastal erosion in geography to work in small teams (collaboration) to design and present (communication) a solution to a problem (complex problem solving) that has been identified in the local area and whereby people’s homes are at risk of being destroyed due to coastal erosion. They will apply their geographical knowledge, collect and analyse data (maths and computing), learn to communicate persuasively, both orally and written (English), and learning how to use presentation software (computing). We would endeavour to take a trip into the local area or invite local professionals into school to speak to us about their work in this area.

Impact

At Bovington Academy, we believe that a well structured curriculum which meets the needs of all children should lead to at least good progress and attainment which reflect what they have learned. The impact of the curriculum is evidenced through the following measures:

The percentage of students who achieve at least expected academic progress and high levels of attainment in national assessments and examinations such as KS2 SATS
Progress and attainment of current children across key stages over time
‘Cultural Capital’ for all, with a clear focus for disadvantaged and children with SEND
The range of high-level 21st century skills developed by children
The social and emotional well-being of all children, including a high-quality provision for our service children
Positive attendance and behaviour data
Internal and Trust monitoring outcomes
Engagement in enrichment activities offered to all throughout the year and participation tracked
Employability links created
Leadership opportunities offered
Pupil, staff and parent voice

Early Years Foundation Stage: Reception

At Bovington Academy, children in Reception (Early Years) are provided with a stimulating learning environment which encourages learning through play – a fundamental part of early learning.

We use the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum to plan learning opportunities in the following areas.

EYFS areas of learning and their associated Early Learning Goals

Characteristics of effective learning:

Playing and exploring – engagement

Finding out and exploring
Playing with what they know
Being willing to ‘have a go’

Active learning – motivation

Being involved and concentrating
Keeping trying
Enjoying achieving what they set out to do

Creating and thinking critically – thinking

Having their own ideas
Making links
Choosing ways to do things

Prime Areas:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Making relationships
Self-confidence and self-awareness
Managing feelings and behaviour

Physical Development

Moving and handling
Health and self-care

Communication and Language

Listening and attention
Understanding
Speaking

Specific Areas:

Literacy

Reading
Writing

Mathematics

Numbers
Shape, space and measure

Understanding of the world

People and communities
The world
Technology

Expressive Arts and Design

Exploring and using media and materials
Being imaginative

Key Stage 1

Compulsory national curriculum subjects at primary school are:

English
Maths
Science
Design and technology
History
Geography
Art and design
Music
Physical education (PE), including swimming
Computing

We also cover religious education (RE) but you as parents / carers can ask for your child/ren to be taken out of the whole lesson or part of it. We also teach:

personal, social and health education (PSHE)
citizenship

Key Stage 2