Following the lockdown in 2019-2020 Orchard planned how the missed learning was recovered. The school created a recovery curriculum inline with the Government’s expectations to ensure missed learning from the Summer term 2020 was recovered. The action plan states how, as a school, we addressed the needs of the pupils. To support in this, the Government allocated funding to school and the plan outlines how this funding was used.
The school follows the National Curriculum and the requirements for the early years. The school curriculum comprises all learning and other experiences that the school plans for its pupils. The curriculum comprises the core subjects of:
- English
- Mathematics
- Science
and the foundation subjects:
- Art and design
- Computing
- Design and technology
- Languages
- Geography
- History
- Music
- Physical Education
- PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education)
- RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) Statutory September 2020
Raising and maintaining standards at Orchard requires focus on what we do in the classroom. Continued and sustained improvement is dependent upon improving the quality of learning and teaching that is taking place on a daily basis. At Orchard the expectation is that all pupils are provided with high quality learning experiences that lead to consistently high levels of pupil achievement. The curriculum is adapted, where necessary, to meet the needs of SEND pupils and to ensure equality of opportunity for all our pupils. See our equality page and SEND page for more information about these areas.
We expect every teacher to be a good teacher – no child deserves less.
By adopting a whole school approach to teaching and learning across the school, we aim:
- To provide consistency of teaching and learning across the school
- To enable teachers to teach as effectively as possible
- To promote British values
- To enable children to learn as well as possible
- To give children the skills they require to become more effective lifelong learners
- To provide an inclusive education for all children
- To learn from each other, through the adoption of a collaborative, enquiry based approach to teaching and learning, where good practice is shared
Theme
At Orchard we are continually striving to adapt, alter and amend the curriculum so that the pupils receive the best quality teaching and learning possible. As of the academic year 2018-2019 we introduced a new way of delivering the curriculum in Years 1 to 6. This curriculum is set out in themes where the children will experience six different themes a year, one per half term. Each theme encompasses the different subjects and links the learning under one theme title. The children should become immersed in the learning of that theme and use and apply their knowledge learnt to many different aspects of the theme. This approach also gives the children the opportunity to further and deepen their understanding in the foundation subjects as well as the core subjects. We hope that the children at Orchard enjoy this new way of learning and come home and talk about all the interesting activities they have been covering in their theme work.
Curriculum: Intent, Implementation and Impact
Subject Overviews
Year Group Overviews
Theme Overviews
Religious Education
All schools are also required to teach religious education – Orchard follows the scheme of work set by Hertfordshire. Every state-funded school must offer a curriculum which is balanced and broadly based and which:
• promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society
• prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life and
• prepares pupils for life in modern day Britain, learning about British values.
British Values
The school takes opportunities to promote British Values, defined by the government as the following:
• democracy
• the rule of law
• individual liberty
• mutual respect
• tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs
In actively promoting British Values, we will also focus on, and be able to show how our work with pupils is effective in, embedding fundamental British values. Actively promoting also means challenging pupils, staff or parents expressing opinions contrary to fundamental British Values, including ‘extremist’ views.
Further curriculum information
This page provides a summary of our school’s curriculum, if you would like more information about the curriculum at Orchard please contact the school office.