Curriculum Maps

In This Section…

“Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again”. 

Vincent Van Gogh

At Rosecliffe Spencer academy we believe learning should be exciting – our ultimate aim is to provide a highly enjoyable, creative curriculum which not only incorporates the National Curriculum but the needs, thoughts and ideas of every learner in our school and community. We want for our children to know more, and remember more.  Our creative curriculum ensures that all of our pupils are motivated, engaged and enthused about every learning experience, inspiring them to become lifelong learners.

To view our curriculum overviews please see below:

 

Our curriculum is our passion here at Rosecliffe Spencer Academy; all of the teachers have been a part of its development. We have a two-cycle curriculum which ensures that children are introduced to new knowledge whilst still having the opportunity to recap prior learning. We aim for a highly motivating and stimulating curriculum which encourages children to ask questions, be independent learners, collaborate and be aspirational. The curriculum is a way in which we make the learning meaningful for the children. It allows for problem-solving across all subjects and real-world application to the learning process, making it a more comprehensive way of educating and of learning.

 

The purpose of our curriculum

We begin with the principle that all children are equal and have an equal entitlement to knowledge. The inventive design of our curriculum and its high-quality implementation are integral to our core values at the academy, every child, every day.

Knowledge in isolation from life experience has limited value and impact. Poorly-sequenced knowledge can cause uncertainty and confusion. We believe that knowledge must be embedded, developed and reinforced to ensure that our students use their knowledge to make informed lifelong decisions.

As they progress through the academy, students’ knowledge-application and wisdom grow exponentially, teaching them new independence, resilience and character at every stage of their development.

We encourage students and staff not to be afraid to make mistakes. Life is a journey and we learn new knowledge and new application techniques after every mistake we make.

Our curriculum not only develops life knowledge in all our students but teaches them how best to use this knowledge throughout their lives.

 

Character is key

Our curriculum and education provision aim to develop the following character traits in our students:

  • Determined resilience
  • Aspirational work ethic
  • Moral awareness and tolerance
  • Emotional capacity and understanding
  • Fulfilment and enjoyment

 

Curriculum choices

High quality teaching is the medium by which skills, core knowledge and applied knowledge can be dissipated through a well-sequenced curriculum model. The nature of the Spencer Trust makes us collaborative, and this collaboration of subject specialists and researchers means our students benefit from the very highest quality in teaching and the most powerful knowledge. It also enables us to ensure that curriculum knowledge and understanding of our teaching and support staff is central to the personalised and continued professional development that all our staff receive to ensure it has impact in the classroom, for every child, every day.

Our curriculum, then, becomes a deliberate and explicit guarantor of equality as we work to close the limits to opportunity that exist in society. We ensure all our students have access to a broad and balanced body of knowledge regardless of demographics and starting points. We harness the expertise from within our Trust across primary and secondary phases to develop a challenging and rich ‘all-through’ curriculum model, whilst systematically sharing best practice across academies, phases and the wider Trust.

 

Challenging and stimulating

The high expectations we have of every single member of staff and the school community drive forward this mission to open opportunities for all young people in an area of deep disadvantage. The collaborative aims of the Trust and our academy mean we can draw on our understanding of the local context to create challenging and stimulating lessons and activities

All our teachers are encouraged to be readers and researchers into their own subject discipline.

 

The aims and principles of our curriculum

Educational Success: Every Child, Every Day

To provide all students with opportunities to access and engage with the best that has been thought and said, but also to help students comprehend that while knowledge is powerful it is also insecure, contested and evolving. We encourage our students to see themselves as contributing to scholarship.

We secure concepts in English and Mathematics in early phases and this acts as a gateway to acquiring core knowledge in a rich range of subjects such that we develop students’ expertise within those individual subject disciplines.

An enriched vocabulary enables a better understanding of concepts and ideas and we facilitate access to knowledge beyond our students’ ordinary daily experiences. We do this by expanding the breadth of their vocabulary. Children are exposed to a variety of texts both fiction and non-fiction, a wide range of creative arts and thoughtfully-planned learning outside the classroom.

The Rosecliffe Spencer Academy drives forward curriculum pedagogy with a level of demand which develops:

  • scholarly and physical and emotional stamina and rewards resilience and resourcefulness
  • opportunities for deeper conceptual understanding through enquiry, discussion and debate of knowledge

 

Sequencing the Curriculum for Mastery

At Rosecliffe Spencer Academy we have carefully mapped out our schemes of work for every year group for the entire school year. Underpinning our schemes of work (long-term and medium-term plans) is the application of spacing and interleaving, which we believe helps pupils to commit knowledge and skills into their long-term memories as well as achieve subject mastery.

 

Interleaving

Learning/knowledge acquisition is sequenced purposefully so that similar concepts are interspersed with different pieces of knowledge, rather than being consecutive. At Rosecliffe we believe this is the best way for learning to be embedded into long term memory. This method also improves pupils’ abilities to apply many pieces knowledge to one task, which pupils usually find very difficult.

 

Spacing

A second method we use to help pupils commit knowledge and skills to memory is the spacing effect. This refers to incorporating time delays between learning and practise, leading to better educational performance over time. This means that pupils learn something new, then have more opportunities to re-visit that learning and practise it throughout the year. Pupils therefore do not have opportunities to forget, but also allows for mastery