Curriculum overview

We understand the vital role curriculum has on learning and that “the best curricula generate at least 25% more learning than the worst, irrespective of teacher quality” (Dylan Williams). Therefore, we view curriculum as the critical starting point for generating a rich and rigorous learning experience at Ark Isaac Newton Academy. Our curriculum model is underpinned research and by shared principles that provide a critical framework for our work on curriculum across the academy. Ultimately, our curriculum seeks to ensure all our students reach transformative destinations at the end of their journey with us. To achieve this, our ‘curriculum aims’ are underpinned by the following principles that enable consistency in curriculum thinking, planning and design across the academy, whilst allowing phase and subject nuances to occur.

Our curriculum intent principles are:

1. Rich & Powerful Knowledge

At the heart of our curriculum is teaching rich and powerful knowledge, delivered through a wide breadth of subjects and experiences. We understand the transformative nature this kind of ‘knowledge’ can have on a student’s ability to learn effectively and think critically. Knowledge is carefully selected (content choices) and sequenced to ensure our students retain it long term and build detailed and flexible schemas.  We aim for students to ‘master’ the knowledge by careful organisation and rigorous exploration in each subject, using the national curriculum as a starting point.

2. Objective and Question Driven

Curriculum design is centred on asking ‘big questions’ and setting ambitious objectives, both long term and through each lesson component. This helps ensure our teachers and students are consistently moving towards clearly defined end points at each phase and transition point of their journey at the academy. We believe that learning is most effective when centred on asking questions of the knowledge taught and therefore seek to develop curious learners that begin to form connections with the questions asked of them across the curriculum.

3. Mastering the Foundations (literacy & numeracy)

A core aim of our curriculum is the intentional and explicit development of reading, writing, oracy and numeracy skills that will enable all students to access curriculum content regardless of starting points. Our curriculum aims to secure literacy and numeracy foundations to the highest standards, so all students can access rigorous subject content. For those requiring additional support, there is a tailored approach and interventions, so all students master these foundations required to secure the curriculum and achieve.

4. Inclusive and Ambitious

Our curriculum aims to ensure all students are exposed to the best that has been thought and written, intentionally exposing our students to challenging content. Regardless of starting points, we ensure that appropriate scaffold occurs to ensure our curriculum is inclusive to all students. Moreover, our ambition is rooted in our commitment to developing the ‘whole child’. We believe that the curriculum should serve as an opportunity to build social and cultural capital through finding opportunities within subject disciplines to extend and enrich learning. Ultimately, our curriculum sets ambitious goals so that our students achieve excellent academic outcomes and go onto access transformational destinations.

Like our aims, curriculum implementation is shaped across all phases of the academy by a set of shared principles that underpin pedagogy at Ark Isaac Newton Academy. We firmly believe that both lesson design and delivery should create a consistent and shared approach so that all students have the same experience. Although, there are some differences with curriculum implementation between the primary and secondary phases, we have still created a synergy that ultimately leads to typical ‘INA classroom’, which we believe is special and unique.

Our curriculum implementation principles are:

1. Subject Experts

To effectively deliver an academically rigorous knowledge rich curriculum requires our teaching staff to be experts within their subject areas. Curriculum leaders across the academy are highly knowledgeable and experts in their subject areas, who provide pivotal foundations for effective curriculum design and delivery to occur. As well as providing crucial personalised development and support for our teaching staff, we commit a significant amount of its training time to ensuring those responsible for curriculum implementation can do so to the highest standards. We take advantage of being an all-through academy by sharing expertise across the phases, with several subjects at the primary phase (PE, Music and MFL) taught by subject specialists.

2. Climate and environment

We believe the foundations for excellent learning are rooted in achieving the optimal climate for learning and classroom environment. Consequently, we commit to ensuring that we create a unique classroom culture across the academy. Here, we focus on generating a ‘safe’ learning environment, where students take risks, centred around consistent classroom routines that build habits of successful learners and ensures no learning time is wasted. Finally, we believe in the power relationships have in creating excellent classroom culture and promote their value in cultivating the desired classroom climate and environment.

3. Memory

Learning only occurs when alteration in the long-term memory happens. Therefore, our teachers have a deep understanding of cognitive load theory and deploying strategies that enable students to learn effectively by ‘chunking’ it into manageable parts and then retain/retrieve knowledge over time.  We want our students to effectively memorise and communicate knowledge learned, therefore we support this by providing knowledge maps and booklets so students can access core knowledge independently. Here our rigorous approach to assessment, particularly formative, by regularly testing our students in quizzes or low stakes test intentionally supports our approach to memory.

4. Precise Assessment and Feedback

Curriculum implementation is evaluated by our rigorous approach to assessment practices. We emphasise the power of responsive teaching, therefore, place emphasis on regular and precise formative assessment method, which helps drives our knowledge centred approach. Our assessment model ensures that it supports effective implementation by helping build long term memory by securing curriculum content via regular testing. Assessment drives progress in lessons by teachers planning for frequent ‘checks for understanding’ and effective AFL strategies that enables teachers to respond against the immediate and longer-term learning objectives. Moreover, students receive regular feedback on their knowledge and curriculum gaps, which ensures they are empowered to take control of their learning, whereby they understand what actions to take to further secure the curriculum.

5. Shared pedagogical strategies and routines

Effective implementation across all classrooms only occurs when there are high levels of consistency. Therefore, we are committed to ensuring that we develop shared approaches so that we eliminate ‘in-school variation’ and that all students receive the same high-quality experience. Moreover, we want to take the best from proven research and create a model that enables teachers to have lesson design and delivery models.

Secondary Curriculum Implementation Model

Leaders within the secondary phase have taken our curriculum implementation principles to generate a shared approach in lesson design and delivery. We believe the connectivity between these two things as integral features in effective of curriculum implementation in the secondary phase.

1. Review, Position, Chunk, Chew and Check (RPC)
2. Newton’s Nine

Design and delivery model: Review, Position, Chunk, Chew and Check (RPC)

RPC are elements that construct our overall lesson design, which is aimed to ensure our curriculum is implemented effectively and consistently across all subject areas. This is a pivotal to creating a culture of consistency in our pedagogical approach, by ensuring design and delivery are connected. The diagram below outlines the approach.

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Consistent Classroom culture: Newton’s Nine

Building an excellent classroom culture, where climate for learning is constructed, is an integral foundation for learning to occur. Here consistency is key. We accept different subjects require a tailored approach and we never wish reduce teaching to a mechanical approach, or “robotic like”. However, generating a consistent classroom culture, requires shared strategies and routines, where we believe that fostering strong and consistent routines, will help build habits of successful learners. These are ‘Newton’s Nine’.

1. Perfect starts & ends to lessons
2. Power of silence & listening
3. Voice: positive, strong & one voice at a time
4. 100%: focus and effort
5. Targeted cold-calling & full sentence responses
6. Collaboration: turn and talk
7. Clear instructions and modelling – ‘what to do’ & ‘how to do it’
8. Circulate to check
9. Deliberate practice

We constantly evaluate the impact of our curriculum through various forms. Our rigorous approach to assessment ensures that we have ‘rich’ data that enables both effective formative and summative evaluation to occur. This enables interventions to occur at student and subject level. Robust monitoring and evaluation cycles (e.g. learning walks, book looks, student voice, weekly raising achievement team meetings, termly academic review meetings) ensures that curriculum impact is constantly reviewed at Ark Isaac Newton Academy.

Our longer term ‘impact’ goals for our students are summarised as follows.

• Detailed schemas forged that enable students to retrieve complex knowledge that leads to the ability for them to make connections within and across subject curricular. We want this knowledge to lead them to truly understand the world around them (past, present and future) and be confident to articulate this in any given situation.
• The acquisition of knowledge, skills and habits that enable all students to meet the current demands of the 21st century working world and those yet to be defined.
• That academic outcomes reflect the highest levels of excellence at all levels, regardless of starting points. Enabling all students to reach their chosen destinations and get to follow their passions as adults.

Finally, the ultimate impact of our curriculum is to ensure that our students are ready and well equipped to meet the demands of the next phase in their educational journey, whether they are transitioning from KS2 to KS3 or to university at the end of KS5.  Crucially, curriculum impact at the academy is evaluated by the extent to which our students secure transformative destinations because of outstanding academic outcomes.

We are very proud about the sustained impact our curriculum has had on delivering academic excellence across the phases. To find out more click on the link below that will take you our performance data.

Latest exam results and performance data