Our unique curriculum stems from our school values: Excellence, Enjoyment, Responsibility, Respect, Community, Compassion and Perseverance and has been designed to reflect that life at Broad Square is rich, varied, inclusive, exciting, challenging and inspiring.

Our broad and balanced curriculum promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral social and cultural development and provides opportunities for pupils to:

• Be happy, enthusiastic and reflective learners who enjoy and take an active part in lessons;
• Think creatively, engage in problem solving and develop their resilience and perseverance;
• Become responsible, rights-respecting caring and compassionate citizens who appreciate diversity and make a positive contribution to our school and wider community;
• To develop their confidence and their capacity to learn and work independently, respectfully and co-operatively with others;
• To develop their knowledge, skills and understanding in all areas to enable them to make rapid and sustained progress;
• To demonstrate excellence in all aspects of school life, academically and personally striving to achieve their best.

Our ideas about curriculum, teaching and learning are rooted through educational research from many leading experts including; Tom Sherrington's research based Walkthru materials to further enhance our teaching and learning. 

Equality and diversity is promoted throughout our curriculum and during assemblies to ensure that children recognise the value and promise of every individual, regardless of culture, background or religion. Assemblies are based around our Key school values and themes based around our Jigsaw scheme of work, with reference to British Values and SMSC. Picture News also promotes learning about the diverse world in which we live. 

Our curriculum, alongside the National Curriculum, promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils and prepares them for the opportunities and experiences of later life.

At Broad Square a full range of national curriculum subjects are delivered in order to offer all of our children a broad and balanced curriculum. These include: English, Mathematics, Science, History, Geography, Art and Design, Design Technology, Physical Education, Music, MFL (French) and Computing. We use a range of teaching approaches which support all children's learning, in order to foster engagement, motivation and creativity to ensure that children know more and remember more. 

We provide a curriculum that embraces PSHE.  Messages around keeping children safe are planned into our whole school curriculum as well as being taught as stand-alone learning opportunities.  Children learn about the importance of attendance and good attendance is promoted at every opportunity. 

We organise our timetables so that we teach most subjects weekly; enriching children’s learning experiences through visits, visitors, themed days and extra-curricular activities, including guest speakers who inspire, talk about careers, future ambitions and life skills the children will need to progress.  

Being part of a vibrant city is a cause for celebration for us and the children learn about the heritage, culture and diversity of our city and their immediate local area through our curriculum.

We plan sequences of lessons that are focused on building crucial knowledge in line with the National Curriculum. The development and progression of subject specific vocabulary underpins our children's learning.  Carefully considered opportunities for children to demonstrate learning are planned into our curriculum.  Formative assessment, through regular retrieval practice, compliments summative assessments, which allow teachers to further support our pupil's learning.  

In order to allow the children to fully develop these aptitudes, language is a key focus for us, both to develop the children’s communication abilities, and also to provide them with the rich and specific vocabulary from across the curriculum, further enhancing their subject specific knowledge and understanding. Our staff support children within lessons using a 'say it again better' approach. 

We know how vital it is for students to see themselves positively as 'readers' who want to read. Working with them to develop their reading skills can lead to significant gains for young people, personally and academically. We encourage the use of reading across the curriculum to enhance their learning experiences.

Key knowledge is built sequentially and revisited in a range of contexts, with the aim of allowing pupils the opportunity to transfer knowledge, skills and understanding across subjects.   This mastery approach reflects our high expectations for all and facilitates equal access to age-appropriate content. It ensures that depth of knowledge and understanding is sought for all children by staff.  Alongside teachers' expertise, we use a range of scaffolds to support learning.

• The Primary National Curriculum 2014
• The Early Years Foundation Stage Framework
• Ready Steady Write, Ready Steady Spell (KS2)
• Power Maths and NCETM materials for mathematics including Mastering Number
• Monster Phonics SSP (DFE validated scheme) 
• Opening Worlds Humanities Curriculum for teaching History, Geography and RE(KS2)
• Teach Computing Scheme of Work for Computing
• We are a legacy school for the teaching of PSHE Jigsaw and ensure we are up to date with statutory guidance through the use of the learning hub.
• RealPE  to deliver PE lessons 
• Kapow for music provision 

EYFS

In our Early Years Foundation Stage (Nursery and Reception classes) we ensure that our children learn and develop well in a safe environment.  We promote teaching and learning at the child’s own pace to ensure “School readiness”.  We build on the skills the children have and also develop a broad range of skills and knowledge that provide a firm foundation for a positive future in school and life.  We work in partnership with parents/carers and other outside agencies to ensure all children are included and supported. 

The whole school curriculum is led by the senior leadership team and subject leadership team so that there is a consistency in approach across our school.

Impact

We know our curriculum is having an impact because the children tell us they love learning and take great pride in their achievements. We promote their learning through our newsletters, twitter and celebrations.

Children talk confidently about what they have learnt and recall information from previous lessons. They are encouraged to make links between lessons to fully understand concepts and ideas.

The learning attitude shown by our children is good as they are motivated and engaged in their learning. Comments echoing this are received from visitors to the school and on school visits. In addition, we have developed a strong bond with a variety local groups who are keen to be regular visitors to our school.

Our school values, which work on promoting skills of excellence, responsibility, respect, community, enjoyment, compassion and perseverance throughout the curriculum, enables our children to become fantastic role models and the very best version of themselves.

Visitors from neighbouring schools often come to see our school; how we have devised our curriculum and the subjects within it, to see how they can learn from us here at Broad Square. We also see many of our staff extending their expertise when presenting at other local schools and universities.

Parents speak highly about our school, sharing these positive views during parental questionnaires and on Parent View.

We carry out regular monitoring and assessment in all subject areas and use this to inform future developments in our school.

If you would like any further information about our school curriculum please contact our curriculum leader Donna McNamara by contacting the school office.