Our curriculum centres around three main priorities across our academy; a nurturing approach, acquisition of language and raising aspirations. We strongly believe we need to create an education for our children that goes way beyond the standard classroom practice. Our curriculum supports our pupils to become confident, aspirational children who have the knowledge and skills to become an expert in all areas of the primary curriculum. We do this through innovation, creativity and entrepreneurism. We want to support the next generation in creating new jobs that require inspired learners with open minds. We believe our ethos and curriculum will enable children to make the difference, now and in the future.

Every child is recognised as a unique individual. We celebrate and welcome differences within our diverse academy. Community involvement is an integral part of our curriculum. We want children celebrating local history and the successes and achievements of local people. When our children leave the academy we want them to be prepared for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life in modern Britain.

The Whetley curriculum has been built on the Academy and Trust vision and mission statement. Through our curriculum we aim to:

We feel strongly that for all children to succeed in the curriculum, we want to build the children’s language and reading skills throughout the whole curriculum, supporting them to become well-read and well-spoken young people.

Our curriculum concentrates on three areas of development that we know our children need to succeed. These areas underpin the curriculum as a whole and envelope the ethos of the academy as a whole.

1: The first area focuses on our children having aspirations and the responsibilities that they have in the community. Pupils develop their ability to reflect critically on the range of skills they have used in their learning during their primary journey. We believe that these skills are fundamental in preparation for the challenges they will face as the next generation of adults.

Through our curriculum we will:

2: Whetley Academy prides itself on the caring, nurturing approach shown, both by staff and children alike. We hold the personal development of our children’s social, emotional and mental health wellbeing in the highest possible esteem. Our curriculum builds and encourages this thread throughout.

Through our curriculum we will:

It is our underlying belief that every child should feel they are valued and experience the feeling of success in all curriculum areas. We have designed our curriculum to ensure every child receives an appropriate balance of academic and personal development. We recognise the importance of children’s physical and mental well-being. We ensure our curriculum provides the children opportunities to develop strategies to support their personal development. Our approach to SMSC is embedded in the Delta ethos of mutual respect, partnership working and collaboration. This is an approach that we believe is fundamental to a full and positive participation for life in modern Britain.

3: Underpinning all areas of the curriculum is the vital skill of language acquisition. The ability to read fluently with a good level of comprehension is pivotal. As many children join the academy with extremely low communication and language skills, the academy focuses on the skill of language from the moment they step into the school. This is even further developed by our bespoke Reading Enhanced Curriculum that immerses children in reading in every subject of the curriculum. The Academy strongly believes in giving individual attention to the needs of the children in our care. It is our mission to offer every child a high quality education in a supportive, safe environment in which they feel valued and are inspired to become learners who are ‘Today’s learners, tomorrow’s leaders’.

Reflecting the challenging prior context of our Academy, the curriculum focuses on early reading from the very start of school. Our Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) makes a crucial contribution to children’s early development and learning. We provide children with a rich variety of teaching and learning experiences that are appropriate to their needs.

Our definition of progress is; the widening and deepening of essential knowledge and skills. We designed our curriculum to ensure that children are not merely covering content but deepening their knowledge. Our careful curriculum design and planning means that we build in many opportunities for repetition and practice for essential skills and knowledge. This ensures that children can revisit previous learning, which allows them to gradually develop a deeper understanding of the skills and processes within subjects, at their own pace and in the best possible way for each individual child.

Success for a child at Whetley is simple; they will leave with the knowledge and skills needed to support their next steps of education. They will have the ability to use these skills by using refined language acquisition which is supported with high quality reading fluency. We firmly believe every child will be a success at Whetley Academy.

At Whetley Academy we use Zones of Learning in our teaching sequences to ensure children are able to connect their learning from a previous session, link this to new learning, have an opportunity to practise the new learning and then apply this independently. The independent part of the learning is called the Purple Zone and this is where we assess what children have learnt and respond by using our Feedforward approach to address any misconceptions.

The Red Zone – Connecting Learning

•Here in the Red Zone you are remembering what you have already learnt – we call this activating your prior knowledge.

•You may have learnt this last lesson, last week, last term or last year.

The Yellow Zone – New Learning

•Here in the Yellow Zone you will discover your New Learning.

The Green Zone – I do, You do

•Here in the Green Zone your teacher will model a task then you will complete a task.

The Purple Zone – Independent Work

•Here in the Purple Zone you will complete this work independently.

•All the work you have done in all of the other zones will help you to complete your work.