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Curriculum Overview

At Applegarth Academy, everything we do is founded on a belief that ‘working together we will achieve.’

We aim to create a nurturing school community where our children’s learning experiences are varied and inclusive; ensuring the highest standards of learning, where all children reach their full potential whilst being inspired to continue learning in the future.  We teach with inclusion, diversity and equality at the centre of all our curriculum decisions, with the focus on creating a broad and balanced view of the world and reflecting our community. Our key drivers are collaboration, curiosity, communication, creativity and standing out from the crowd. These drivers underpin our curriculum rationale. The following outlines the key drivers and how they affect our decision making at Applegarth Academy.

Driver What does this look like? Why is it important for our children?
Collaboration
  • Learning in teams
  • 5 behaviours for learning
  • Developing independence and confidence
 We want our children to appreciate the value of working as a team and the power in drawing on other’s ideas, opinions and knowledge. Our children will be equipped with the social-skills to enable them to work cooperatively with those around them. This begins in Nursery and sets up our children for working collaboratively for the rest of their lives.
Curiosity
  • Development of curiosity to immerse children in a wide range of topics and interests.
  • Community events &
  • engagement
  • Exciting and engaging Learning environments
  • Educational visits, visitors & opportunities within school to develop a love for a subject
  • After school provision that helps empower children with a passion for a particular subject
 We want our children to be passionate lifelong learners with a thirst for finding out more. Our children are encouraged to lead their learning; to ponder, to dream, to discover and to ask questions. We seek to excite, enthuse and engage our children through carefully-crafted learning opportunities experiences and educational visits. We believe that our children can make a positive impact on the community, their country and their world and therefore we will encourage them to ask the big questions: ‘Why is this happening? What can I do about? How can it be done?’ and give them the opportunity to put this into practise.
Communication
  • Pupil voice
  • Strong emphasis on language development
  • Use of sentence stems
  • Writing for purpose
  • P4C
 We seek to equip our children with the tools to be effective communicators who present themselves with the confidence that they have a voice worth listening to. We value pupil voice and actively encourage our children in their right to be heard.
Creativity
  • To allow children to express their ideas and skills in a variety of ways
  • Modelling for children creative skills using a wide range of lessons, experiences, visits and trips
 We want our children to be creative, engaging with the arts and sciences and having a rich and varied curriculum. We want children to be able to ‘think outside the box’ and come up with their own unique and individualised ideas. We want children to explore their own creativity and engage with what inspires and motivates them.
Standing out from the crowd
  • Allowing children to be the best we can be, gaining skills to help them stand out from others
  • Giving our children skills above the national curriculum, preparing them for life in the real world
  • Engaging with outside organisations to give them an understanding of the wider world and be prepared for the challenges of the real world
 In a world full of choices, we want our children to be number 1. We understand the challenges our children face competing throughout our lives, so we want our children to be given the tools and stamina to succeed. We want our school to harbour children’s talents and abilities and make them stand out in the wider world. This will help them succeed and be the best they can be.