Grasmere Academy
Our Curriculum philosophy
Our school vision is the starting point for the bespoke curriculum that we have created for our children:
"At Grasmere Academy, overtime we have carefully crafted a school that embeds a highly inclusive ethos. We believe that no matter what the stage of development of a child, we will ensure that our children make progress. Instead of making children ‘fit into’ a school system, we will actively look for ways to see how we can change in order to meet the needs of our children. We have adopted a motivational and engaging teaching and learning pedagogy, steeped in research and mastery, which reflects how the working world has changed, It is our moral imperative to prepare our community for this. The world we live in requires innovators, problem solvers, critical and creative thinkers and culturally aware citizens. it is our drive to prepare our children for a life unimaginable."
Before we look at curriculum design, it is important to understand what our school offers on a wider basis, this model is how all the different elements and unique features of Grasmere create the spirit of our school, but how they are so intrinsically linked together to provide a rich learning platform for our children
Our school model
Our Teaching and Learning Model
We developed this learning model ourselves and it is pivotal to teaching and learning practice in school, it has been developed using Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. It is used as a model for lesson/curriculum design to ensure constant recapping of key knowledge and skills in order to create relevant links in sequencing concepts to achieve maximum success.
Our Curriculum Structure
At Grasmere Academy we teach Phonics (Read, Write Inc), Maths (using the White Rose hub) and Literacy (based on talk for Writing) throughout the mornings, which covers the National Curriculum and essential basic skills which can be found on those curriculum pages. In the afternoons, we teach Science and the wider Curriculum, driven through Geography and History. These are then linked with Art, DT and Computing, where applicable. All other subjects are taught discreetly and this is taught across the entire school. Information on the individual subject knowledge and content to be taught can be found on the relevant curriculum pages, however an overview can be found on each class page.
In the Mainstream classes, which are mixed year groups - a 2 year rolling programme of content has been mapped out, to ensure that all content is covered whilst the children remain in that class.
In the SEND unit a longer rolling programme of coverage has been adapted, as children stay within this setting for their entire school experience - please see the SEND unit page for further information.