Our curriculum has been designed to enable children to realise their full potential, leaving school with the highest standards, a love of learning and a set of moral values that will enable them to make a positive contribution to society.
In order to raise children’s aspirations and improve their life chances, we provide opportunities for children to broaden their horizons, challenge stereotypes and consider the vast range of possibilities open to them if they consistently embody our Trust values of Passion, Urgency, Positivity, Aspiration and Commitment.
As much as possible, our three key academy curriculum drivers of #Community, #Equality and #Sustainability will run as a thread through everything we do at Westbridge, to help strengthen knowledge and understanding across the curriculum.
Reading is the cornerstone of our English curriculum. For children to succeed in school, they must be reading at the national curriculum stage of learning by the end of each year group. They also need effective teachers, so our approach includes intensive professional development, ongoing coaching support, and data tools to give teachers feedback on how children are learning and where they need additional teaching or extra help. Our approach to teaching English involves the whole school community in implementing effective teaching that is based on the best research on what works well.
Our English programme makes learning fun and engaging for children and helps teachers become knowledgeable, skilled instructional leaders. This will accelerate and challenge children’s reading and writing abilities. Strong foundations, in both oracy and literacy, are built in Nursery and Reception, and pupils receive systematic teaching throughout the primary years to extend their learning systematically. We provides a wide range of opportunities for children to explore and develop phonic knowledge and comprehension strategies; develop vocabulary and spelling; improve grammatical awareness; analyse whole texts; and develop writing in a range of genres, all whilst exposing children to a wide range of interesting, bright and diverse range of literature.
The intent of our mathematics curriculum is to ensure that it is accessible to all and that it maximises the development of every child’s maths ability and academic achievement. We aim for our children to become fluent, competent and independent mathematicians able to reason and problem solve. We want the children to know that mathematical knowledge is essential to everyday life, and plays a crucial role in understanding the content of other subjects; ‘it is critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment’. Instead of learning mathematical procedures by rote, we want pupils to build a deep conceptual understanding of concepts which will enable them to apply their learning in different situations. Through mathematical talk, children will develop the ability to articulate, discuss and explain their thinking. Our academy values of ‘Passion, Urgency, Positivity, Aspiration and Commitment’ and our belief that ‘there is the difference in not knowing and not knowing yet’ are at the centre of everything that we do at Westbridge.
We believe that pupils should have the opportunity to develop their understanding of Science through knowledge and scientific enquiry. Teaching and learning throughout selected objectives in three areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum, Personal Development; Understanding of the World and Expressive Art and Design, provide children with the fundamental skills and experiences needed to develop their knowledge, understanding and analysis of the world. Through lots of talk and careful observations in engaging lessons and experiences, pupils begin to understand that there is a lot that we can learn about the world around us and talk about their observations and discoveries clearly and with confidence.
Skills taught across EYFS feed into the National curriculum. The structure of our curriculum allows for pupils in KS1 and KS2 to build on their existing knowledge from their previous key stage and develop them further. Our Science curriculum very much makes links with and feeds into other areas of the curriculum. Lessons are created to prepare pupils for their daily lives and open their eyes and aspire to the possibility of Science related careers in the future.
Learning geography helps us to be more socially and environmentally sensitive, informed and responsible members of our local and global community. At Westbridge Academy, we aim for a high-quality geography curriculum to inspire in our pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people. The curriculum is designed to develop the knowledge and skills that are progressive, as well as transferable, for the pupils throughout their time at Westbridge Academy and also to their further education and beyond.
At Westbridge Academy, we aim to help our pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. We intend to inspire our pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past and equip them to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement.
In these two highly creative areas of the curriculum, children are given the opportunity to learn skills which build on what has been taught before, so they can become confident designers and artists. In all learning, pupils are encouraged to make mistakes and learn from them, to evaluate their work and to make suggestions as to how things may be improved. In Art, pupils always have a focus on a particular artistic element and medium, as well as a particular artist as a stimulus for their work. In Design and Technology (DT), pupils develop their skills using a variety of media in order to design and make products for a particular audience or reason.
Computing is becoming an ever increasing part of our lives. At Westbridge Academy, we believe it is a core life skill, and that is why a good early start in grasping the fundamentals is so important. Through a progressive curriculum, our children begin a learning journey that sees them take their first steps in understanding how computers shape the world around us. From learning how to create animated story books in Year 1 that extend their imagination, to building spreadsheets and databases in Year 6; we aim to equip our children with the skills needed to succeed in a digital future.
At Westbridge Academy, we recognise the value of Physical Education (PE) and its importance in leading a healthier lifestyle as well as impacting cognitive skills, attitudes and academic behaviour. These include enhanced concentration and attention as well as improved classroom behaviour. It is important that children at Westbridge learn how physical activity benefits the body and how exercise encourages healthy lifestyles into adulthood.
PE at Westbridge encourages children to be involved in physical activity and develop competence in a broad range of activities such as running, jumping and throwing as well as providing opportunity to collaborate and work as part of a team based upon games such as football, netball and hockey. At Westbridge, gifted and talented sports people that show commitment, passion and positivity, will be given opportunities to reach their aspiration with small group teaching with the PE teacher.
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At Westbridge Academy, Spanish lessons consist of a range of speaking, listening, reading and writing activities. Many of the secondary schools that our pupils transition to in Year 7 teach Spanish as one of their key languages, so we want our children to have the opportunity to begin to learn the basics. This will help to provide our pupils with the confidence and desire to learn more by the time they start their secondary education. Did you know that over 570 million people across the world speak Spanish? Westbridge pupils will have a great start to being able to communicate effectively with other communities as they get older.
At Westbridge Academy, our intention is that children develop an enthusiastic passion for music based on listening, singing, performing and discussing a wide range of musical styles, historical periods, and traditions. Our goal at Westbridge Academy is to create a catalyst for what will be a life-long love of music, full of curiosity and respectfulness. We are committed to ensuring children have the skills, knowledge, and confidence, to access, create, and enjoy all types of music that they may have the pleasure of experiencing throughout their lives.
Westbridge Academy is part of a wonderfully diverse community with the intent that our children become supportive and encouraging, accepting and understanding, mindful and inquisitive learners. Our R.E. curriculum allows children to discover and gain an insight into religions within the world that we live by exploring important texts, festivals and beliefs. As with the rest of the curriculum, this knowledge is built upon and expanded as they progress through the school.
At Westbridge Academy, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) enables our children to become healthy, independent and responsible members of society. The intent of our RSE curriculum is to enable our children to understand how they are developing personally and socially, and tackles many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up. We provide our children with opportunities to learn about rights and responsibilities and appreciate what it means to be a member of a diverse society. Our children are encouraged to develop their sense of self-worth by playing a positive role in contributing to school life and the wider community. We aim to prepare children to be global citizens now and in their future roles. Our RSE curriculum is supported by wider aspects of our school community such as our Safeguarding and Citizenship Curriculum, Zones of Regulation and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Curriculum and our Pupil Parliament as well as our use of P4C.
Philosophy for Children is an approach to education that puts philosophical enquiry at the heart of the learning process and provides an opportunity for children to develop some of the life skills and qualities that are linked to our curriculum intent.
P4C develops thinking that is:
