Curriculum Values at Inspire

At Inspire Multi Academy Trust schools we strive to enjoy our learning and make it as much fun and as meaningful and relevant as possible. We offer children an engaging education in a safe, calm, creative, inclusive and stimulating environment. Every child is valued as an individual; we aim to nurture well rounded, respectful and confident children who will develop skills for life-long learning. We nurture our children on their journey and encourage them to be creative, unique, open-minded and independent individuals, respectful of themselves and of others in our school, our local community and the wider world. We take our responsibility to prepare children for life in modern Britain very seriously and ensure that the fundamental British Values are introduced, discussed and lived out through the ethos and work of our school.

Our curriculum promotes respect for the views of each individual child, as well as for people of all cultures. We value the spiritual and moral development of each person, as well as their intellectual and physical growth. We organise our curriculum so that we promote co-operation and understanding between all members of our community. We are fortunate at Inspire to have spacious learning environments. These are respected and used by all in our schools and we aim, through our curriculum, to teach respect for our world, and how we should care for it for future generations, as well as our own.

Why is Inspire’s Curriculum designed in this way?

Our aim is to ensure that the majority of pupils who enter our school leave at the end of Key Stage Two (KS2) at the Age-Related Expectation (ARE) for all subjects within The National Curriculum. Furthermore, we want to ensure that our children develop into aspirational, successful young people; safe in the knowledge that they are confident, well-rounded people who are ready for secondary education and later life.

What does the Curriculum look like in action?

Inspire prides itself on its entirely inclusive pedagogy which is based upon pupil voice, engagement and ownership of learning.

Learning Environments:

The above includes using the environment to enrich a child’s experience and ensuring ownership over their learning. The classrooms have a variety of flexible learning spaces, which children have a hand in designing and creating. The children create their learning aids together with the staff: example – vocabulary aids, number lines, alphabets. They also create the backing and titles/prompts for their topic displays and have a say in the outcomes that are displayed to showcase their learning. This allows them to feel that their learning space belongs to them and empowers their sense of achievement, as well as feeling that they are valued as learners and as part of the school.

The classrooms are set up with areas so that pupils can access resources independently. They are always encouraged to independently select resources to support their learning should they wish.

Planning, Delivering and Teaching the Curriculum:

We deliver our curriculum via a topic based approach. We find that this allows pupils to gain the relevant knowledge, skills and understanding by making links with subjects and placing learning into real life contexts; it allows children time to investigate, question and respond to challenge; engaging children in their learning to the highest level possible.

A culture of resilience is embedded within Inspire schools. The children are empowered to complete multiple drafts of work to ensure that they are proud of their learning and that it is of the highest quality possible.

To meet the requirements of the National Curriculum, all classes in Key Stage 1 and 2 follow set, pre-planned topics; there are six topics per year group, per year, ensuring that there is a new topic for children to engage with each half term; maintaining higher levels of interest and engagement.

We also offer after-school clubs and other extra-curricular activities.

The topics we choose depend on three factors:

• the content set out in the National Curriculum for each of the subjects
• the interests and needs of the children
• the interests and needs of the children

The National Curriculum sets out the minimum content and at Inspire we work to adapt this content wherever necessary to allow for strength of pupil voice, alongside acquiring relevant, deeper knowledge and understanding. For example:

• we offer a range of after-school clubs and opportunities– these extra-curricular activities go beyond the statutory requirements
• if a class or group show an interest in a particular subject, teachers will adapt planning and try to include this in the topics or the school year
• current local / national or international events can provide a great basis for learning

Not all subjects can naturally ‘fit’ within a topic and so these subjects are usually taught in a discrete way. Religious Education does not usually link with a topic and so it’s taught separately. Not everything in Maths links effectively with a topic and so this often runs separately, but contextual links are made whenever possible. French and PE are also often taught discreetly.

Creativity is important so our children are really engaged in their learning: we want our English, Maths and topic lessons to be inspiring, challenging, enjoyable and relevant to the pupils. Skills are needed so that our children can become effective, life-long learners and successful, happy citizens. The skills feature in all subjects; they are sometimes the primary objective of a lesson whilst at other times skills are developed more implicitly.

Should you require any additional information regarding our curriculum, please do not hesitate to contact us.