Curriculum

The ASUS Hub Curriculum is an overarching document that draws on the strengths and expertise of three schools, while allowing each school to then fine tune that curriculum to best suit their individual school needs.

The curriculum has been designed with several principles at its core. These have been derived from research conducted by scientists and psychologists - however we recognise that knowledge does not stand still, and we accept that our curriculum must be continuously under review as we better understand how children learn.

Our philosophy as such is simple: we want every child to leave our schools as positive, enthused learners; with a deep knowledge of the subjects they have been taught; and with a desire to go out into the world and be successful in the way they see best for themselves. We want them to flourish.

We recognise that our Hub might not have the necessary depth of knowledge for every subject, but we acknowledge that our teachers are pedagogical experts. They know our pupils well, are becoming curriculum experts, and can see and identify the features a curriculum needs to support and nurture our pupils.

We started by working out how much time we had to teach each subject; this was the limiting factor that would dictate what we would teach, and how we would teach it. We then agreed on several philosophies, to ensure a consistency of vision across the curriculum. These are:

• A spiral curriculum, with knowledge being built on activated prior knowledge.
• Teach less, but teach it deeper, and teach it better.
• Built in retrieval and practice.
• Inclusion of facts+skills+experiences to make the knowledge we want our children to learn.
• That, with something like a dozen secondary schools that our pupils could go to, we might not be able to present the exact knowledge our pupils need, but we can instil in them the love of learning they will need to succeed.
• That to be successful learners, our pupils need subject knowledge and the learning knowledge. Pupils will need to be taught emotional regulation and metacognition skills and awareness, so they can, over time, take control of their own learning, and understand how and when to apply their resilience and perseverance.
• We also recognise that our curriculum journey starts, and is built on, a successful and comprehensive EYFS curriculum. EYFS forms the foundation of every subject, it’s assessment informs every teacher in every year group, and its principles extend into KS1.

As a result of the diverse demographics within our school communities (including GRT children, a large number of disadvantaged children and a larger than average percentage of SEND children), the design of the curriculum has several key threads:

• That to be successful learners, our pupils need subject knowledge and learning knowledge. Pupils will need to be taught emotional regulation and metacognition skills and awareness, so they can, over time, take control of their own learning, and understand how and when to apply their resilience and perseverance.
• That to be successful in education and in life, our pupils need to accumulate the knowledge and skills which can be gained from the enriched and wider-life experiences that are interwoven through our curriculum. In time this will enable children to enjoy and access a wider world view.
• That children will flourish academically and socially using oracy skills. With a clear progression of skills mapped out, over time children will learn to express their feelings and emotions appropriately, convey their knowledge in a cohesive way, comment on matters, solve problems, voice their views and have the ability to explain their thinking whilst showing empathy for others.
• That children can see the value of our world, show appreciation for their environment and begin to lay the foundations for an environmentally aware adulthood; knowing their future obligations to our world and their place within it. 

Our curriculum consists of the following core subjects: Maths, Literacy (including writing, reading, phonics and handwriting), P.E., Science, MFL and PSHE. As Church Schools, we also have RE as a core subject. With the recent pandemic, and the impacts it has had on our pupils' wellbeing, we have also promoted PSHE to a core subject. Our foundation subjects are: Art, Design Technology, History, Geography and Computing.