Curriculum Statement

“It is the duty of schools to provide each child with the knowledge and skills requisite for academic progress – regardless of home background”

(E.D. Hirsch, quoted by Nick Gibb 2015)

Curriculum Intent

Like every state school, we offer a curriculum that:

• Is both broad and balanced
• Sets out clearly the knowledge and skills pupils will gain at each stage
• Makes provision for a daily act of collective worship, teaching religious education to students at every key stage and sex and relationship education (SRE)
• Makes provision for personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) via careful planning and designing

What makes us exceptional is our multifaceted curriculum adaptation, constantly responding to the context of our community and individual student needs. Academic developments must take place alongside personal development, such as resilience, autonomy, and ambition. From such a widening of experiences we help our community to value education and a love of learning. Being immersed in a haven of creativity will engender such an appreciation in our community too.

Our curriculum promotes the school’s core values:

• ASPIRATION through offering a predominantly academic core curriculum within each pathway, alongside vocational subjects and qualifications, allowing our students to apply to the very best colleges, universities and employers
• RESPECT through our teachers providing engaging, challenging and enjoyable learning experiences. We provide students with the essential cultural capital (via a devised iKnow programme), knowledge and skills that they need to be educated citizens and prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life, but most importantly to be successful
• OPPORTUNITY through placing the foundational knowledge of literacy and numeracy at the heart of learning. We recognise how vocabulary size relates to academic success and confidence in literacy and numeracy are preconditions of success across the national curriculum. Therefore, students are placed on appropriate pathways to meet these needs so that they can take advantage of opportunities in later life, especially those who arrive below age related expectations
• EXCELLENCE through engagement and challenge via careful use of assessment to inform planning and personalise the learning. We set targets for individuals that are unapologetically ambitious

Curriculum Implementation

Learning at Redbridge is a fully immersive experience. Our curriculum design is reviewed and evaluated carefully, for both purpose and appropriateness, for each and every cohort:

• Giving consideration to the depth and breadth of the subjects taught, with an increasingly strong Ebacc core
• Being systematically sequenced to ensure that declarative and procedural knowledge build upon what has been taught before and, where possible, connect subjects and experiences, to commit to long term memory
• Having clear and purposeful assessment practices to check understanding at key points and identify and correct misconceptions
• Considering carefully our local contexts, adapting to address any gap or delay in learning (especially considering the pandemic)
• Providing development to support where student backgrounds may have gaps in knowledge and skills

Within our review system, each subject/qualification and subsequent scheme of work is rigorously assessed against our four key questions:

1. To what extent is the learning in the subject relevant and suited to the context of the school? (focus on the broad and balanced)
2. To what extent is the learning in the subject ambitious, deepening the substantive and disciplinary knowledge and understanding for all? (promotion of social mobility)
3. To what extent is the learning in the subject coherent, with clear sequencing?(address learning gaps and promote links in learning)
4. To what extent is the learning in the subject providing full coverage and depth of knowledge for all? (development of cultural capital, disciplinary expertise and pedagogical development)

The Fundamental 5 and Metacognition

Our whole school teaching and learning priorities are made up of the Fundamental 5:

• Literacy
• Assessment
• Shine
• Recall
• Sequencing

This is all tied together by our metacognition strategy using the Metawalk comprising four stages: Me, Plan, Do, Review.