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Curriculum

Curriculum Intent

We are proud of our rich and balanced curriculum at Bentley Heath, through which we aim to broaden horizons and open doors to all life has to offer. We want pupils to leave Bentley Heath with the extensive knowledge and thinking skills needed for them to lead fulfilling lives and have the highest aspirations. Reading is at the very heart of our curriculum, as we recognise that when children make good progress in reading they also find success in other individual subject disciplines; fluent readers learn more because they can read and gain knowledge for themselves.

We believe that a rich, academic curriculum and a wealth of life experiences go hand in hand. This is why we have thought carefully about how we can use our curriculum to open our pupils’ eyes to the world around them, enabling them to understand the diversity of the world in which we live, and empowering them to be advocates for positive change. Our six Christian Values underpin our curriculum, helping children build foundations which will help them develop the moral compass needed to make positive future choices.

Through collaboration with our school community, we have developed our Bentley Heath Curriculum, which has a golden thread – spirituality – which runs through everything we do, and six key strands: Leadership and Advocacy; Knowledge-rich and Academic; Treasuring Difference; Christian Values; Experiences and Life Skills, and Love of Reading. These main strands underpin our curriculum and encompass everything we aspire to achieve by the time our pupils leave us at Bentley Heath.

Our Curriculum Strands

Spirituality and spiritual development might be thought of as the ‘golden thread’ which runs through our curriculum. It is not standalone and is intrinsic to everything we do at Bentley Heath. We understand spirituality as the way in which we nurture our ‘inner life’. To help us with this, we understand spiritual moments as the ‘wows’ (moments of awe and wonder), ‘ows’ (life’s blows and tough times) and ‘nows’ (being aware and present in the moment).

Our aspiration for all our pupils at Bentley Heath, and part of our Christian Vision, is that they would have the confidence to go out into the world and make a difference. We want pupils at Bentley Heath to develop the leadership skills they need to be able to speak up about those things they are passionate about and be advocates for the underserved.

Our knowledge-rich curriculum aims to inspire pupils and promote excellent outcomes for all including the most disadvantaged. The curriculum content has been carefully chosen and is organised in a coherent way, ensuring children can build on their knowledge from year to year. In this way, the knowledge in the curriculum is cumulative, constructing firm foundations from which children can progress and develop deeper conceptual understanding and subject-specific skills over time. Curriculum coherence enables children to develop knowledge over time, as well as a love of subjects.

We seek to nurture all members of our community and value our uniqueness, celebrating diversity and treasuring difference including the individual talents and skills we have to offer. Our curriculum is designed to enable our pupils and community to experience life outside of our locality and to understand and celebrate the rich diversity in the world we live in.

Our Christian values of perseverance, peace, compassion, forgiveness, creativity and hope, which are rooted in the bible, underpin our whole curriculum. These help our children to develop a moral compass to make positive choices in life and a difference to the world we live in.

We believe a curriculum should open our eyes to the endless possibilities of the lives that lay ahead.  Experiences and life skills are woven into the curriculum and are enhanced with our planned enrichment programme. These experiences and life skills have been identified to give our children the very best opportunities which will equip them with the cultural capital and skills for life.

At Bentley Heath, reading is at the heart of our curriculum as we passionately believe fluent and confident readers who are articulate, are best equipped to go on to succeed in life. We want our children to develop a life-long love of reading and form excellent habits of reading widely both for pleasure and information. As well as prioritising the teaching of phonics and early reading, we also provide children with opportunities in every lesson to learn through reading.

Curriculum Organisation

At Bentley Heath we teach Science and non-core subjects in ‘blocks’ rather than half terms. Each block is 6 weeks long – 5 of these weeks are core teaching content and the final week is a ‘show you know week’. This provides the teacher with additional time to check understanding or re-teach aspects if necessary before moving onto the next block.

Assessment

Alongside current key assessment milestones (Baseline, end of Foundation Stage, Phonics, Multiplication Check, KS2) children will also be routinely assessed through standardised tests (NFER) in Reading and Maths on a termly basis.  Half termly Pupil Progress meetings ensure we discuss the progress and attainment of each child so we can support them appropriately.

Good or better progress at Bentley Heath means that children know more and remember more and this is measured against the objectives set out in their year group curriculum and their starting points. For example, child who achieves all of the objectives in Year 1 and then again meets all of the objectives in Year 2 has made good progress. Many pupils at Bentley Heath make accelerated rates of progress (better than good). This means that, against their starting points and curriculum, they have exceeded the expectation. For example, they may achieve all of the objectives in Year 1 and then go on to be working at Greater Depth against the objectives by the end of Year 2. For children working to a personalised curriculum due to an identified special educational need, good or accelerated progress will be measured against individual starting points.

We are developing annual data captures for the non-core subjects, which will give us a robust understanding of those children who have met year group expectations or are exceeding year group expectations in individual subject disciplines.

For any curriculum queries, please contact the school office.

The right of withdrawal from Religious Education
Parents have the legal right to withdraw their children religious education on the grounds of conscience. However, the right of withdrawal does not extend to other areas of the curriculum when, as may happen on occasion, spontaneous questions on religious matters are raised by pupils or there are issues related to religion that arise in other subjects such as history or citizenship. We would ask any parent considering this to contact the head teacher to discuss
any concerns or anxieties about the policy, provision and practice of religious education at Bentley Heath.