Belleville Wix Academy

Curriculum

 

At Belleville Wix Academy (BWA) we are very proud of our curriculum offer.  We believe we offer an excellent broad and balanced curriculum based on the National Curriculum, with a strong, daily focus on the core subject areas of reading, writing and mathematics. We have worked alongside our Q1E Trust teaching colleagues to design our wonderful curriculum, as described below.

 

Our L.E.A.R.N. curriculum approachArticle Image

Our curriculum is designed with excellence and equality, with our L.E.A.R.N curriculum statement at the core of its intent, implementation and in the way we assess its impact. 

We believe that "the quality of an education system (or a school) cannot exceed the quality of its teachers" (McKinsey 2007) and this principle is key to our school's approach. We invest significantly in recruiting, retaining and developing high quality teaching staff to ensure that all learning in all our lessons is excellent for all pupils.

We place pupils at the heart of our learning approach, our learning environments and our curriculum, so their experience at BWA is of a rich, rewarding education where they achieve and succeed every day. 

BWA is a highly organised school, offering a carefully structured curriculum. Whilst maintaining an appropriate focus on the core subjects of English and Maths, we also ensure that all pupils benefit from a rich and diverse range of topics. In this way we routinely extend pupils' learning beyond the requirements of the National Curriculum. Teachers work hard to ensure that the work is engaging, ambitious, relevant and nurturing for all pupils. Highly trained support staff provide additional classroom assistance where needed throughout the school.

Through shared planning opportunities, learning walks, book scrutiny and pupil voice, we constantly strive to develop and improve our provision with knowledge, excellence and equality. Knowing what excellence looks and feels like is critical and is what we use to inspire pupils. Furthermore, in all parts of school life - in lessons and beyond - our implicit and explicit curriculum develops personal values and positive learning attitudes alongside academic excellence and achievements.

We believe that our school's aims and values are fulfilled within our formal and informal curriculum, such that our pupils achieve and succeed in all aspects of their learning and personal development.

 

Curriculum Design

We place high value on the academic achievements and the importance of pupils being literate and numerate to maximise their life chances beyond primary school.  Our curriculum is clearly structured to ensure every child is developing key knowledge and skills, alongside building excellent personal, social and emotional skills. We deliberately build first-hand experiences into pupils' learning, both to inspire pupils and to support development of their long term memories. We do this across all areas of pupils' learning, be that in our academic, physical, artistic, linguistic, scientific or technological provision.

The overlapping and lateral thinking of skills and content from different perspectives also supports coherence in learning and long term memory development. For example, computing learning may use content from Geography work, or poetry may be inspired by knowledge learned in a History unit. Our local context in Battersea, London inspires many aspects of our curriculum, as does the exciting, diverse community around and within our school.

We are very proud to offer our pupils high quality specialist subject provision through specialist teachers for PE, Dance, Music, Art, ICT and French. 

 

Early Years

Our Foundation Stage (Nursery and Reception classes) provides a stimulating environment which encourages independence and a real motivation to learn. Pupils quickly develop the age-appropriate independence and confidence to learn and interact with others. The classrooms and outdoor areas have excellent resources to promote learning. Early reading and writing skills are taught in an effective and engaging way and pupils achieve extremely well in all areas by the end of the Foundation Stage.

 

Our Diverse Curriculum

At Belleville Wix Academy, our aim is to celebrate diversity and promote equality though our curriculum and beyond. Accordingly, we:

  1. Provide a curriculum which is representative of the world and our community, where pupils learn about and are inspired by individuals of all abilities from all backgrounds, cultures, genders, sexualities, religions and ethnicities.
  2. Focus on how the persistence and determination of significant individuals, from all backgrounds, have positively influenced the world in which we live and celebrate their achievements and contributions
  3. Ensure that we challenge stereotypes and assumptions to broaden our pupils' thinking, understanding and tolerance.
  4. Enable pupils to ‘see themselves’ in books, both fiction and non-fiction. Our position is that pupils should be able to see themselves in what and who they learn about and what they may aspire to become, just as they are also given the opportunity to see a wide range of different people in all sorts of roles including main characters and authors.
  5. Buy new books which continue to diversify our library, book corners and chosen teaching texts, to ensure inclusive attitudes and approaches, and to constantly challenge stereotypes.

 

Our Bilingual Stream

We adhere to the same L.E.A.R.N. approach for teaching the BWA-led English provision of our unique Bilingual Curriculum. If you would like to know more about the bilingual curriculum, please visit this page. 

If you would like more information about our curriculum, please contact the school office on admin@bellevillewix.q1e.org.uk or 0207 228 3055