The Atlas Federation Curriculum Statement

Curriculum Intent

(Why we teach what we teach)

At the Atlas Federation, we want our children to become confident learners who are not afraid of making mistakes and instead, embrace these opportunities to extend their learning. The curriculum is focused around our curriculum drivers and can be found within every aspect of our curriculum    development and implementation. Future possibilities are at the heart of what we teach to ensure that children have the knowledge of what they can achieve later in life and have the necessary tools to help achieve this. The curriculum is planned and progressive to ensure the children develop their inquisitive minds and further develop their cultural capital.

Curriculum drivers shape our curriculum breadth. The main curriculum driver is the development of cultural capital to ensure that all of our pupils are given the best of opportunities to develop and succeed in life. Cultural capital gives our students the vital background knowledge required to be informed and thoughtful members of our community who understand and believe in British values. Our curriculum is created with these drivers in mind. The drivers are used to ensure we give our students appropriate and ambitious curriculum opportunities. Our aims are to ensure that our pupils experience a wide breadth of study and have, by the end of each key stage, developed their long-term memory and built upon previous knowledge leading to greater progress in their learning.

Implementation

 (How we teach what we teach)

Our curriculum has been designed with our children at the centre of the approach with cognitive science at the forefront of the development. Cognitive science tells us that learning is a change to long-term memory therefore the curriculum has been planned and developed to help support pupils to discriminate between themes to help support long-term memory and retention.

We aim for previous learning to be revisited regularly and frequently through retrieval activities. This approach increases retrieval abilities and the ability for the children to store the knowledge in their longer term memory.

(The result of what we teach)

Through the planned implementation of our curriculum and drivers, our children will develop a balanced bank of knowledge to give them the highest possible opportunities to succeed in life. Each subject uses milestones to assess the progression of subject knowledge combined with their topic knowledge. This method of repeating subject knowledge will aid retention within their learning and ensure children are fluent within each subject.

The milestones used break subject knowledge down into 2 year group statements. These milestones develop over a child’s journey at school whilst repeating the key concepts of each subject.

Key terminology/concepts

1. Curriculum breadth is shaped by our curriculum drivers & subject topics.

2. Our curriculum distinguishes between subject topics and ‘threshold concepts’.  Subject topics are the specific aspects of subjects that are studied (topic knowledge).

3. Threshold concepts (subject knowledge) are the key threads that run through each subject. The same concepts are explored in a wide breadth of topics. Through this, students return to the same concepts over and over and gradually build understanding of them.

4. Each threshold concept provides progression through milestones building upon previous knowledge.

5. Cognitive science also tells us that in order for pupils to become creative thinkers, or have a greater depth of understanding, they must first master the basics, which takes time.

6. To achieve the threshold concepts, pupils must move through the three milestones. This will result in a deeper understanding of each specific concept.

7. Curriculum drivers are the main areas we believe that our children require that shape our curriculum choices.

Please click on a subject below to discover our Intent for each subject along with a curriculum / progression map.

What does your child learn at school each day? Find information about our curriculum subjects by selecting your child's year group here:

If you wish to find out more about what your child is learning in school, please contact your child's class teacher who will be more than willing to discuss this with you.