Greenacres Primary Academy

Curriculum Rationale 

Our curriculum at Greenacres is designed with knowledge at its heart, to ensure that children develop a strong vocabulary base and an extensive understanding of the world.  The curriculum promotes long-term learning and we believe that progress means knowing more and remembering more.

As pupils learn the content of the curriculum they are making progress. We have developed a curriculum built on current research regarding how memory works to ensure that children not only have access to 'the best that has been thought and said' but are taught this in a way that ensures children can remember the curriculum content in future years.

Our curriculum is based on the following 5 principles:

1. 'Sticky knowledge' is at the heart of the curriculum
   This means that pupils learn knowledge which empowers them to not only understand the world around them but to understand how each subject discipline works in order to extend this knowledge of the world. As children progress through school, new knowledge 'sticks' to previous knowledge and schemes develop. 
2. Knowledge is broken down into components
   This means that we set out very precisely what pupils will know and be able to do in each subject. This means that we don't leave anything to chance. If we want pupils to know a specific piece of knowledge we specify when and how this is learned over time.
3. Knowledge is acquired in long-term memory
   This means that we expect all pupils to remember their learning into the future. We have planned the curriculum so that there are many chances for pupils to review what they have already learned and secure it in their memories.
4. Knowledge is carefully sequenced over time
   This means that we have thought carefully about the most effective order to learn new curriculum content in.  We have planned the curriculum so that each unit of work in a subject builds directly on what has been learned before. This helps pupils understand and remember their learning more effectively.
5. Knowledge is organised into subject disciplines
   This means that from KS1 we teach individual subjects such as History, Geography, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Art and Languages, which we also link to the EYFS curriculum. We treat each subject separately so that pupils have a very clear understanding of what is important about each subject and that their knowledge and skills progress systematically over time in each area of the curriculum. We work closely with subject experts and subject associations to ensure that what we choose to include in our curriculum is the very best that it can be.