The William Hogarth School Curriculum

Curriculum Overview

Our curriculum is at the heart of the children’s experience at The William Hogarth School.  It is the substance and backbone of a William Hogarth School education, setting out:

• What we plan to teach
• What we intend the children to learn

The William Hogarth School curriculum is designed to bring our school vision and ethos to life by being well-rounded and inclusive, offering something for everyone. As curriculum architects, we have been ambitious in our intent to serve our whole school community, transforming lives and opening doors for all children, moving them beyond what is expected and helping them to discover what is truly possible.  We know our learners better than anyone and are able to adjust and adapt our offer to help everyone experience success. 

Our aim is for our curriculum to:

• Equip children with the knowledge, understanding and skills they need to make learning their own and to see themselves as lifelong learners

• Empower children to think for themselves, within a safe environment, so that they can find their own voice in the crowd.

All children at The William Hogarth School, enjoy the full National Curriculum.

We plan for progress in each subject, with progress maps showing the development of knowledge, understanding and skills.  We also understand that a predictable part of learning is “forgetting” over time.  To address this, we have identified the fundamental learning that children need to master during their time with us and, using research guidance, have embedded retrieval and low-stakes quizzing in our learning sequences to help children keep hold of these fundamentals.  Our curriculum design means that teachers are able to take the children’s learning to considerable depth.

We treat fluency in Reading, Writing and Maths as critical building blocks to wider success.  Securing functional skills in Early Years and Key Stage 1 helps us to unlock the door to broader opportunities in Key Stage 2 and we build on this by prioritising language play, storytime and mathematical reasoning.  In this way, children experience delight and wonder in their learning.

With a highly mobile school cohort, we place great emphasis on vocabulary development within and alongside our curriculum.  We know that tackling the vocabulary deficit is imperative if our children are to build a rich lexicon of words that will help them to organise their ideas, build connections and express themselves effectively. 

The broader curriculum is built around individual subject disciplines. New learning is developed half-termly so that all children benefit from securing their knowledge, understanding and skills within each domain before moving on.  For subjects with a large body of knowledge such as Science, History or Geography, children begin each half term with a ‘big question’ to explore.  This anchors the learning, providing a clear focus and direction of travel; teachers segment the ‘big question’ into its core elements which children explore through the learning sequence. In this way, children are able to unify the learning and secure deeper understanding.  

For some subjects such as Phonics, Maths and English, we have adopted published schemes with a strong evidence base unpinning them. These are the curriculum launchpad for learning, because they are well-sequenced, knowledge rich and sufficiently ambitious for our learners.  Highly effective curriculum adaptation supports each child in embedding the knowledge and understanding needed to reach their potential, so that they can use and apply their learning in different contexts.

For other subjects, such as Cooking, Computing and Art, we have designed our own curriculum, drawing on the expertise of professional associations and using guidance to enhance our planning.  These subjects are an essential ingredient of our inclusive curriculum, allowing children opportunities to transfer, embed and apply key knowledge, skills and understanding in meaningful contexts, as well as developing their language and fine motor skills.

Subjects, such as music, require particular expertise.  As such, these are taught by specialists rather than class teachers.  As an outward facing school, we are also keen to work with other specialists such as swimming or tennis coaches and Sports Impact who can add real value to our curriculum offer and the children’s learning experience.

Personal Development is carefully and explicitly planned for, with a progressive Learning 2 Lead curriculum model that is responsive and innovative.  As a result, our learners benefit from a holistic learning experience of real quality. This approach widens horizons and offers a well-rounded educational experience that goes beyond what children might encounter day-to-day.

Please visit the links below to find out more about the curriculum we follow.

Introduction to Read, Write, Inc.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6dSsXkD1wM

Phonics: https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/programmes/phonics/

Maths White Rose: https://whiterosemaths.com

Early Years Framework: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework--2

Early Years Development matters: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/development-matters--2

KS2 History and Geography: https://www.pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk/primary/subjects/activehub-primary/history-and-geography 

RE: https://discoveryschemeofwork.com/ 

PSHE: https://www.jigsawpshe.com/primary-pshe-scheme-of-work-including-statutory-relationships-and-health-education/ 

Science: https://www.pzaz.online/

Computing: https://teachcomputing.org/

 

Please take the time to read our most recent Ofsted report.

National Curriculum Programs of study by subject

The National Curriculum was last updated in 2013 and introduced into schools in the Autumn term of 2014

National Curriculum Programmes of Study

Maths Curriculum Overview

• Early Years & Key Stage 1
• Lower Key Stage 2
• Upper Key Stage 2

Maths Curriculum

 

Intent

Our maths curriculum is an ambitious mastery approach to maths which is accessible for all pupils. It develops children’s fluency, mathematical reasoning and problem-solving skills. 

“Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.” - National Curriculum 2014

At the William Hogarth, our maths teaching and learning resonates with this statement. We fully appreciate the contribution of mathematics to everyday life and society. Equally, we value the contribution of mathematics in other areas of the curriculum and in promoting children’s curiosity, enjoyment of learning and intellectual development.

William Hogarth Mathematicians:

• enjoy the maths they are taught;
• notice and appreciate maths in the world around them;
• have a positive attitude towards learning maths and expect to be successful;
• acquire a strong fluency in basic number facts and procedures;
• calculate using a range of strategies, choosing the most efficient methods;
• talk and reason about their understanding, using precise mathematical language;
• identify underlying structures, patterns and relationships;
• approach problems with resilience and creativity;
• have a deep conceptual understanding, representing key ideas in diverse ways and appreciating connections between different areas of the curriculum;
• develop both decision making and logical thinking;
• apply and develop their mathematical understanding and knowledge in all other areas of the curriculum;
• work both collaboratively and independently.

 

Implementation

We are a maths mastery school and we are part of the local NCETM hub. A teaching for mastery approach is used throughout the school, based on the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics’ (NCETM) “Five Big Ideas”, first published in 2017. Further information about the Five Big Ideas (coherence, variation, fluency, mathematical thinking and representation and structure) can be found on the NCETM’s website https://www.ncetm.org.uk

We are also a data-informed school. This means we use data precisely and forensically to diagnose what children need to learn. Formative and summative data analysis are used to target our mathematics curriculum highly effectively to meet children’s individual learning needs. This ensures that every child leaves our school with a confident grasp of mathematics, having experienced a varied and rounded mathematical curriculum.

We employ three core teaching strategies to support our children’s progress in mathematics:

• Concrete learning – the use of physical resources to expose the inner structures of mathematical concepts. This supports children in ascribing value and meaning to numbers and mathematical processes, and clarifies more abstract concepts
• Pictorial learning – the use of diagrams and images to visually represent a mathematical idea or concept and to clarify and represent more abstract concepts
• Abstract learning – the use of numbers, symbols and operations in mathematics. As children progress through their mathematical education, they move towards increasingly formal abstract methods.

Impact

The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping children with a strong command of the spoken and written language, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.

 

Reading Curriculum Overview

• Early Years & Key Stage 1
• Lower Key Stage 2
• Upper Key Stage 2

 

English National Curriculum programme of study

 

Intent

Reading lies at the heart of the curriculum at The William Hogarth. We are dedicated to enabling our children to become lifelong readers and we believe reading is key for academic success.

As a result, our children are given the best opportunity to achieve outstanding progress in reading.

We also understand how important it is for our children to enjoy reading.  We have therefore put together a carefully crafted curriculum to ensure that the reading journey our children take with us is a successful one, which builds on reading skills, fluency and correctly identifies children’s reading ages.  This helps to target children when needed and prepares them for the next stage in their education; this includes fostering a love of reading which will take them through their adult life.

 

Implementation

• Planners are used as a regular form of communication where children and parents are encouraged to record reading experiences.

• Children take part in daily comprehension lessons, where they are exposed to an increasingly complex range of different texts and can demonstrate and apply their understanding and thinking behind these.

• We have an excellent library and a wide range of reading books in every classroom, which cater for children at all different levels of their reading. 

• We encourage the reading of classics and contemporary.

• All children choose a reading book to take home and this reading book is changed frequently (Each year group have set expectations)  

• Each classroom has a selection of books, which are directly linked to the class topic. This offers opportunities for children to apply their reading skills across the curriculum. 

• The class teacher reads each day to children. This can be a book that the teacher recommends to the class or a recommendation from a child.  

• Children are listened to at least once a week and discussions around reading take place.

• Daily discreet teaching of phonics and early reading is supported by RWI.

• Parents are encouraged to listen to their child read every day and to read stories aloud as much as possible.

• Reading challenges and poetry competitions are a regular feature of the school year with identified recommended reading lists for each year group.

• We encourage a love of reading through author visits, library visits, access to a range of text whilst children learn their reading skills and become fluent throughout the school

• We regularly assess children’s comprehension skills and reading ages to identify and target support when needed.  For example: - PiXL.

• We encourage regular communication through the use of a planner where students and parents are encouraged to reflect on the reading.

Impact

We ensure that William Hogarth Readers, are highly competent and fluent readers who can recommend books to others as well as demonstrating a love for reading. They will also have a thirst for reading a range of text genres including poetry, fiction and non-fiction texts. Our children will be able to debate and discuss an author’s work, their use of language and the impact this has on the reader.  William Hogarth Readers are expected to choose and read books that will challenge their reading experiences. Which will enable them to achieve outcomes at least in line with their peers nationally. It is our expectation that the children of our school will seek opportunities to communicate their research to an audience including peers, adults and the wider community.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study#:~:text=Aims,through%20widespread%20reading%20for%20enjoyment.

 

 

Teachers use prosody to model how to read with fluency and expression.

Stories are put into a context to aid understanding.

Children become fluent readers with support.

Independently use their reading skills to read aloud.                    Children are exposed to a love for reading by adults.