The Essentials Curriculum (Art & Design, Design & Technology, Geography, History, Music and Physical Education)
Our curriculum is underpinned by the Essentials Curriculum by Chris Quigley. This forms the framework for National Curriculum subjects. The Essentials Curriculum sets out the essential coverage, learning objectives and standards which are required for all subjects as stated in the National Curriculum. The aims of this curriculum ‘are to ensure that our pupils experience a wide breadth of study and have, by the end of each key stage, long-term memory of an ambitious body of procedural and semantic knowledge.’ (Chris Quigley)
One of the primary reasons we chose this curriculum is because it emphasises the importance of developing the depth of children’s learning. In essence, this means providing children with increased cognitive challenge, allowing them to apply the skills which they have learnt independently in a range of contexts rather than moving them onto the next skill needlessly when they have not truly mastered it.
We feel this curriculum provides us with a coherent, progressive and appropriately sequenced curricular structure to enable our pupils to develop subject specific knowledge and skills to prepare them well for the next stages of their education. The curriculum, builds progressively on from the learning in the Foundation Stage. The curriculum is aligned to the National Curriculum and goes beyond National Curriculum requirements in each milestone to ensure repetition of skills and knowledge.