Curriculum

At John Wood School & Nursery, we take pride in nurturing and inspiring all learners to achieve their very best within a happy community where respect and tolerance for self and others is embedded.

Our curriculum is a knowledge-led, progression model and we teach, nurture and inspire long-term life learning. Through our curriculum, we intend to teach the key concepts within each specific subject progressively upon secure previous knowledge, within a broadly context-based framework (i.e. through a topic, a theme or a key question). This will enable children to revisit and build upon the key concepts at an increasingly deeper level as they move through the school and on to their next stage of education. In this way, children will have the opportunity to make increasingly complex connections in their learning across a range of contexts, resulting in rich and deep learning, which is transferable. Our curriculum is designed to ensure all pupils leave John Wood School & Nursery as:

  • Confident individuals
  • Successful learners
  • Responsible citizens

Curriculum Intent

The core purpose of education at John Wood School & Nursery is to provide our children with rich, deep and durable learning that is transferrable across a range of contexts. This will equip them with the knowledge, skills, understanding, behaviours and attitudes necessary for success in their next stage of education, their future employment and for their adult life within an ever-changing world.

Our curriculum design and curriculum approach is aligned to our specific local context and our pupils’ particular needs.

Our curriculum should enable our children to:

  • build strong, knowledge-based memories, store them in their long-term memory and be able to retrieve and use them as desired
  • make strong connections within their learning, that are durable and transferrable between contexts
  • think creatively and critically
  • innovate, solve problems and generate solutions
  • develop strong analytical skills
  • become emotionally literate and morally responsible citizens.

Cultural Capital

The curriculum is enhanced by a range of experiences that enable our children to understand and discuss the world through trips, visitors, hands-on tasks and other relevant activities. These should help them to develop as independent, informed and inquisitive learners.  Read more about our Personal Development and Cultural Capital here.

Curriculum Implementation

Bespoke Curriculum

Our curriculum is a bespoke curriculum. We have designed it around the specific needs of our pupils using our locality, where applicable, and it is continually responsive. Consequently, our school curriculum is not static, it is continually building and reconstructing in response to our pupils’ changing needs. Our school staff are reflective practitioners, they consider what works and what does not.

Knowledge-led approach
  • Through our knowledge-led approach, children are taught to master subjects through subject specific knowledge, where skills are an outcome not its purpose (i.e. skills are the outcome of the repeated practical application of knowledge).
  • The development of knowledge and consequent skills are delivered contextually where appropriate, such as through a particular topic/theme or key question. This helps children to store and retrieve their knowledge and skills. Staff help pupils to make connections in their learning between different topics/themes/key questions. This strengthens learning and makes it more durable and transferable.
  • Staff use intelligent repetition of key concepts to enable deeper understanding and stronger connections to take place. Intelligent repetition is used to promote the acquisition of core knowledge, efficient recall, to practise, to deepen understanding and to make connections.
  • Staff provide children with ‘knowledge organisers’ at the start of each topic that sets out the important, useful and powerful knowledge on a single page. These are shared with parents, so that curriculum discussions can continue at home.
  • Time is built into lessons to re-visit information that has been forgotten and for retrieval practice.. Staff understand that for knowledge to embed in the long-term memory, it needs to be learned over many different interactions and that it takes effort. Staff understand that greater effort results in stronger connections.
Progression and Mastery
  • Our curriculum recognises that children need to be taught the key concepts within each subject in a way that minimises overload and maximises retention.
  • Our curriculum recognises the importance of progression. We understand that this is not a superficial movement from levels or stages. It is an understanding of the concept of Mastery.
  • Through the Mastery approach new knowledge is built upon secure previous knowledge. Mastery includes making connections between different aspects of learning or different contexts for in order to create a rich web of knowledge. This results in the construction of strong semantic memory.
  • Our curriculum grows progressively more and more complex through sequential and spiral learning, giving our children the capacity to learn more, make connections and deepen their understanding.
  • As our school’s bespoke curriculum grows progressively more and more complex and sophisticated over time, and our children move from year to year, our children have the opportunity to think more deeply about important concepts and apply them to within other contexts.
Local Context, Educational Visit & Visitors
  • Our curriculum makes good use of local and other areas, school visits and school visitors to close gaps in our children’s experience. It also provides wider opportunities and experiences that will enable our pupils to apply their knowledge, skills, values and understanding in much wider contexts.
  • At our school we utilise the vast green spaces that we have outside, including the use of our Forest School area for outdoor learning and fieldwork opportunities in geography and science.
  • We want children to feel proud to be part of the Croydon and wider London community and work closely with many charities to enrich the curriculum for all pupils.

Curriculum Impact

  • Our children demonstrate confidence, independence, resilience and a real thirst for learning.
  • They understand and demonstrate our core values of ambition, independence and perseverance in their learning.
  • Our children are able to form meaningful relationships based upon mutual respect and trust, recognising and celebrating difference, not only within the school community, but in the wider world as well.
  • Our children have access to a wide and varied curriculum, allowing each of them to excel as individuals and be the best they can be.
  • Our children are well prepared to access the challenges of the secondary school curriculum and develop skills in how to learn and revise.
  • Our children have aspirations for the future and know that these can be realised with hard work and determination.
  • Our children grow up being able to make a positive contribution to the world in which they live.