Curriculum

Curriculum at Fox Hill

We believe in a curriculum that begins with values and character, and ends with every child succeeding.

Curriculum Intent

At Fox Hill, we believe that the planning and teaching of our curriculum is central in ensuring our vision, mission and values are reflected within the outcomes of our pupils throughout their learning journey. Our shared vision of Fox Hill being an inspirational school, where learning is a journey of excitement and every child is nurtured to thrive, believe in themselves and be empowered to succeed, is underpinned by our values of kindness, curiosity, self-belief and pride. Our curriculum ensures our values are nurtured to support the personal, social and academic development of every pupil and promotes success and high aspirations for the future for all learners.

Our aim is to inspire and develop our children into the scientists, historians, geographers and artists of the future with our carefully thought out content and ambitious curriculum design. We strive to deliver a broad and balanced, inclusive and awe-inspiring curriculum that promotes wellbeing and fosters a love of learning and curiosity, building on prior knowledge and prepares children to be equipped for the future. We understand that it is vital for every child to succeed academically, but that they also need to develop well personally and socially if they they are going to lead fulfilled and happy professional and personal lives. Therefore, our values underpin the curriculum to develop kind, respectful and socially responsible people, curious lifelong learners, developing high levels of self-belief and aspiration, and the pride in themselves and the community.  

Providing an inspiring and nurturing school experience, built on positive relationships where children are cared for, supported and challenged, enables our children to be ready to learn, feeling safe to take risks and build upon their own and others’ mistakes. Furthermore, our pupils gain first-hand experience of making their community a better place and are able to reflect this in their contribution to wider society.

Through careful planning and sequencing to meet the needs of our learners, our pupils are provided with the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to progress, cumulatively building on their understanding, ensuring that they are able to succeed and are well prepared for their next phase of learning.

Our curriculum aims to:

• Enable all learners to succeed, progress and be proud of their achievements, developing high aspirations for the future. 
• Deliver a broad, balanced education, tailored to the context, needs and values of our school.
• Enable learners to develop their curiosity and passion across the curriculum, exploring concepts in greater depth.
• Provide experiences and lasting memories which will further embed the knowledge, skills and understanding covered in their learning journey.
• Enable learners to value and take pride in their learning, developing non-cognitive skills such as kindness, curiosity, self-belief, working with and understanding others, acting on advice and feedback as well as developing learning behaviours.
• Ensure learners are aware of the wider community and their impact on the world in which they live, enabling them to contribute positively to society.

The range of experiences we offer supports our children academically, but also ensures that their spiritual, moral, social and cultural needs are met. We are incredibly proud of our curriculum and the experiences we provide children who in turn demonstrate how they are deeply proud of our school, their British values and diverse society to which we belong and play an active part. We are proud that our curriculum gives our children the knowledge, skills, confidence and self-belief to lead a happy and fulfilled life by encouraging them to always aim high and work towards following their aspirations in life.

Curriculum Implementation

Teaching and Learning 

At Fox Hill we are fully committed to all teaching being excellent by developing our pedagogy on teaching strategies that can enhance teaching and learning across the curriculum. Our pupils enjoy coming to school and are happy in their learning, they are encouraged to ask questions and teachers continually strive to stretch their thinking in order for pupils to achieve their potential in a supportive, welcoming learning environment.  We recognise the importance of lessons being engaging and stimulating, where pupils receive high-quality teaching and responsive feedback for improvement.  We want all pupils to think hard about their learning, learn from their mistakes and strive to be the best they can be.  We plan to ensure pupils revisit key themes and concepts and retrieve key knowledge to support long term memory, which will drive progress and raise standards across the curriculum.

Our Teachers and Teaching Assistants;

• Actively promote and encourage pupils to be curious and ask questions
• Plan learning that include techniques aimed at enhancing long term retention of substantive knowledge
• Remind pupils how the learning in the lesson relates to previous learning 
• Ensure that learning is accessible for all and that challenge and high expectations are planned into all parts of learning
• Model learning through the use of worked examples and exemplification 
• Give responsive and immediate feedback throughout lessons to ensure pupils are understanding and improving their learning
• Check understanding frequently through a range of questioning and assessment methods
• Adapt to 'in lesson' assessment to ensure that gaps and misconceptions are addressed 
• Identify and plan for misconceptions
• Create structured opportunities for partner talk in lessons

Curriculum Structure and Design

Our definition of learning is children remembering more in the long term. We design, organise and plan our curriculum and teaching to ensure that children are not merely covering national curriculum content, but achieving a depth to their learning which enables them to use their knowledge, skills and understanding in all areas of the curriculum.

At Fox Hill, our Curriculum is knowledge rich, with concepts sequenced in small steps, coherently mapped to enable learners to make connections within and between subject areas. Carefully interwoven into our Curriculum are experiences to support blending knowledge and skills, as well as embedding reading across all areas of our learning. 

Our careful curriculum design and planning means that we build in many opportunities for children to repeat and practise opportunities for essential knowledge, skills and understanding in every subject. This ensures that children are able to revisit and retrieve previous learning, which supports a deeper understanding of the key knowledge skills and processes within subjects. Through a thematic approach, we interleave knowledge across different contexts to maximise the retrieval and transferability of previously learned content. The National Curriculum underpins our Curriculum.

Highly skilled subject leaders have designed progressive curriculum maps which ensure children gain the key knowledge and skills In every subject.  Our knowledgeable and skillful teachers ensure that every child is included in all subjects by ensuring their needs are met in the classroom.

Each theme is carefully structured so that each year group has:

• A clear Curriculum Map which outlines what will be covered.
• The 'threshold concepts' (essential subject-specific knowledge) pupils should understand by the end of each year, supported by knowledge organisers.
• Subject-specific progression maps that detail how the threshold knowledge and skills progression are developed and assessed during our Fox Hill pupils’ journey through the school.

Please see below our curriculum newsletters, subject and year group information.

See below for Subject Curriculum Information

Click here for Year group Curriculum Maps and information

Click here for Curriculum Newsletters - all year groups 

Click here for our extended Curriculum offer - The Fox Hill Journey of Personal Development and Leadership Opportunities  

Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development 

The range of experiences we offer supports our children academically, but also ensures that their spiritual, moral, social and cultural needs are met too. We are incredibly proud of the experiences we provide the children who in turn demonstrate how they are deeply proud of our school, our British values and diverse society to which we belong and play an active part. We believe that exposure, not only to culture but also to situations which the children might not have previous experiences of, is of paramount importance to their ongoing successes. 

Gradually widening children's experiences as they progress through school is an important step in providing rich and engaging learning across the curriculum. We plan carefully for children to have progressively richer experiences in Reception and beyond. These include trips to the local park, care homes, theatre, farms, and visits to places of worship, museums, sports and music venues to name a few. 

We are proud that our curriculum gives our children the knowledge, skills, confidence and self-belief to lead a happy and fulfilled life by encouraging them to always aim high and work towards their aspirations in life.

Curriculum Impact

The impact of the Fox Hill Curriculum is considered through a range of formative and summative assessments, tailored to each subject area. Formative assessment underpins every lesson at Fox Hill; teachers assess pupil progress within and between lessons through a variety of questioning techniques. Feedback is given in the moment in order for children to review their learning and make progress within lessons. This style of formative assessment which is also referred to as ‘Responsive Teaching’ during lessons also informs teachers' planning and helps to identify the next steps in the learning process.

National summative assessments take place at the end of each key stage in Reception, Year 2 and Year 6, in addition to the Phonics Screening in Year 1 and the Multiplication Tables Check in Year 4. The results of these assessments show the standard of achievement at Fox Hill, which can be compared to national figures.

In addition to national assessments, summative assessments are completed each long term for Reading, Writing, Maths and Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar in Years 1-6. As a school we use PIXL for our assessments, which provides teachers with an in-depth analysis of gaps in learning and also a comparison to other PIXL schools’ data. Teachers use the data from question level analysis to inform subsequent teaching and planning, as well as for delivering targeted interventions. For children who require more tailored assessments, Salford Reading, Sandwell Early Numeracy Tests and BOXALL Profiles are used to identify progress and targets, alongside other bespoke intervention baseline and progress measures. Our Phonics and Early Reading assessments follow the ‘Little Wandle’ programme, then progress onto Accelerated Reader assessments to measure progress and identify children requiring extra support.

Assessment in non-core subjects is achieved through the use of ‘Milestones’. Each Milestone covers two year groups (Key Stage 1, Lower Key Stage 2 and Upper Key Stage 2) and contains a range of descriptors which give more detail to be discovered within the concept. Over each two year period, children will become increasingly familiar with these details by exploring them in a breadth of contexts to enable a depth of understanding to be developed.

In addition to formative and summative assessments across the curriculum, we also use pupil voice; parental feedback; monitoring led by subject leaders; writing moderation sessions with local schools and Local Authority advisors; network meetings and CPD sessions for subject leaders, in addition to Quality Assurance led by the leadership team and subject leaders. During the school year there are two Parent / Carer evenings and at the end of each school year, teachers write an annual report on each child. Our Governors also meet with subject leaders to monitor and evaluate the quality of our curriculum offer.