Learn – Achieve – Inspire

How has our curriculum been designed?

Our aim is that all children experience a curriculum which creates diverse, rich and varied learning opportunities relevant to today‘s. world. We have designed a curriculum that:

· Is centred around children’s own personal experiences starting in their local environment.

· Is based on strong values encouraging high engagement and challenge. 

· Teaches children the importance of being safe, healthy and promotes their sense of emotional wellbeing.

As a staff we draw the inspiration for our curriculum design from a passion and drive to provide deep, rich learning experiences that children will engage with and remember.
The Fairburn curriculum is ambitious and comprehensive. It is exceptional*. It has developed over time and remains ever evolving as we continuously and critically reflect on any adjustments needed in response to research and our monitoring of provision in practice.

The Fairburn curriculum gives pupils their full entitlement to the content and coverage of the national curriculum but so much more. The defining characteristics of our curriculum include principled commitments to:

• Promote our aims and values and the Fairburn promise, developing children as tolerant, responsible and respectful future citizens.
• The spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils.
• An understanding and promotion of equality and diversity and the protected characteristics.
• The inclusion of all pupils whatever their background or circumstance, and fully involving pupils with special educational needs.
• Learning about the locality, including its history, geography and community. Rooting children’s learning in the here and now, given context and meaning to studies and helping develop an understanding and appreciation of the modern world.
• Keeping all pupils safe including when taking sensible risks whilst pursuing a rich and varied range of learning activities, including those that are innovative and challenging.
• Developing staff subject and pedagogical knowledge and the confidence they need as teachers across all subjects.
• Continually strengthening curriculum content through a cutting edge curriculum design developed through our research-based partnership with national subject specialists.

Our curriculum is exceptional because of the unique way in which we work with a wide range of nationally accredited experts for each subject area. Unlike many other schools, we have not subcontracted our curriculum design and planning to these experts. Instead, we partner with experts in action research projects centred not on generic curriculum planning and resourcing but on a curriculum for Fairburn.

As a result of this partnership, our pupils benefit from the best subject provision and practice and our staff benefit in continuous development of their own learning and expertise in improving their teaching of the curriculum. 

Our school curriculum is composed by taking into account three different elements as the diagram below shows. 

As well as learning through a progressive framework of skills and knowledge, we also want the children to have a full range of experiences that challenge, motivate and inspire them so that everyone has the opportunity to find their own skill or unique passion. 

The world is an exciting and complex place and we want our children to want to find out about it and be equipped to understand how it works. We never know who is going to be the next athlete, politician, scientist, chef, electrician etc so we want our children to be aspirational and develop goals to aim towards. 

Most of all, we want all children to enjoy coming to school and be fully engaged in their learning, feeling fully supported and cared for.

What does this look like?

Below is an image showing our curriculum design. 

The very nature of our school is that it constantly evolves and develops not only in terms of curriculum but in our approaches and practices of teaching and learning. 

The NC subjects are taught largely through topics underpinned by a progressive set of skills and knowledge. Whilst a topic may incorporate more than one subject within it, children are taught the distinctive features of each curriculum area in the manner of ​‘behaving like a …scientist; artist; historian etc.

In order for children to develop as rounded individuals, we feel that the strands of ​‘Skills Builder’ (teaching eight essential life skills), manners, meta cognition, independence and diversity must be interwoven within the everyday teaching and learning in the classroom. 

Staff work from long term plans to write termly plans which are compiled at the beginning of each term so that they are current and reflective of current issues. Topics are mostly based around an investigative question. See an example of a termly planning document below.

Parents also receive a termly curriculum newsletter detailing what their child will be learning during the term. See our Newsletters page.

Curriculum Opportunities 2024 – 2025:

Working with Jerry Clay English Hub over two years to continue to further improve our reading provision.

Continue to work with our team of consultants to ensure our curriculum provision is fully providing for the needs of our pupils- subject specific classroom observations.

Begin the Childnet Digital leaders Programme.

Engage with the ​‘Find My Voice’ programme.