Curriculum at Bliss – 2022 / 2023

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The Curriculum at The Bliss Charity School

•   Intent – How is the curriculum at Bliss designed and why has it been structured in this way?

‘The main purpose of curriculum is to build up the content of long-term memory (the 'Schema') so that when students are asked to think, they are able to think in more powerful ways because what is in the long-term memories makes their short-term memories more powerful. That is why curriculum matters.’

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      William, 2018    

The curriculum at The Bliss Charity School delivers the aims of the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework and the National Curriculum in a thorough and engaging way. We use termly, over arching topics to deliver some of our subjects in a cross-curricula approach. Other subjcts are taught discretely. We strive to give pupils a broad and balanced education, as well as a range of enriching and memorable learning experiences.

Underpinning the curriculum at Bliss is the school’s unique ‘Metacognition Programme’ which has been specifically designed to enable pupils to maximise their learning potential and develop the cultural capital needed to self-regulate and succeed as both learners and members of modern Britain.

• Implementation – How is the curriculum taught?

Some subject-specific content and objectives are threaded together into termly topics in each year group. This is not at the expense of deepening learning which is why other subjects sit discretely. The over-arching topics are derived from an aspect of the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework or the National Curriculum.

Through careful sequencing of key subject concepts and retrieving prior knowledege, our children acquire a depth of knowledge that can then be applied to the development of future learning. 

• Impact

We assess the children in a range of ways from formative assessment in every lesson, to using tests at the end of units to support our judgements. Outcomes for pupils are positive

• Typically, pupils enter the school with broadly average knowledge, understanding and skills. Rapid progress is then made through the reception year and cohorts go on to exceed the national attainment for a Good Level of Development on exit from the EYFS.
• Pupils make good progress through KS1:We strive for children to develop good early reading skills which supports the majority of children to work at the expected standard or higher, resulting in cohort attainment ahead of the national average at the end of Year 2.
• In years 3-6 high levels of attainment from KS1 are maintained through KS2.

   Class 6 complete five topics over six terms, with the one topic spread over Terms 4-5 due to other commitments, including: SATs week; secondary school transfer days and the summer play.  

   

Further information about our curriculum

Termly class newsletters provide more detailed information about the content of the curriculum for parents. Once published, these are emailed home to parents/carers and they are available on the ‘Class’ pages in the ‘Pupils’ section of our school website (www.bliss.northants.sch.uk).

Whole-school newsletters provide further information about the children’s learning in general. These are published throughout the year; they are emailed home to parents/carers and they are available on the ‘Newsletters’ page in the ‘Parents’ section of our school website.

Our twitter feed (@BlissCharitySch) is used to give an immediate insight into the children’s day-to-day learning, celebrating successes and achievements throughout the school.