We believe we have a core duty, in all our DoWMAT academies, to ensure our pupils receive the very best education possible.

To achieve this, it is imperative that the curriculum on offer in each of our academies is truly world-class; engaging pupils and providing them with access to the skills and knowledge they will need to become successful, confident, fulfilled adults in the future. To truly transform the lives of our pupils, we must inspire now and instil in each the confidence to become the very best version of themselves.

The Trust does not have a standardised curriculum. With our academies serving diverse communities, we have made the decision not to adopt a one-size fits all model. Nonetheless, we remain united by our focus on delivering the very best learning experiences for all our pupils within an engaging and exciting framework. To achieve this, each academy has taken the time to develop its own intent and approach – underpinned by our Christian Vision and our Christian Values – to delivering the key learning their pupils need.

The intent in each DoWMAT academy is characterised by our desire to ensure our curriculum;

• Provides excellent teaching across a broad and balanced range of subjects to engage our learners.
• Provides opportunities for children to develop as independent, confident, successful learners with high aspirations.
• Builds on prior learning in logical steps.
• Enables our pupils to make a positive contribution to their community and their wider society.
• Maintains a high focus on developing children’s moral, spiritual, social and cultural understanding.
• Empowers all learners to enjoy their education and make good progress in all areas of learning

Our Curriculum Principles

It is our ambition that all pupils within a DoWMAT academy will experience a curriculum that is:

1. Ambitious - in content and the knowledge and skills pupils have access to
2. Knowledge-rich – maximising opportunities to access a wide, global, cultural capital
3. Inclusive – enabling all to feel valued, appreciated and allowed to flourish
4. Connected - empowering children to recognise and explore links between different subjects and experiences
5. Respectful - of the world we live in and the people we meet along the way, celebrating diversity, challenging injustice and promoting equality
6. Relevant – matching content to the needs of the pupil; enabling pupils to make informed choices
7. Rigorous, systematic and targeted to support pupils in achieving the best outcomes
8. Balanced - promoting intellectual, moral, spiritual, social, emotional and physical learning 
9. Focussed - developing deeper understanding of key principles
10. Characterful – developing personal pride and the highest moral standards

Implementation

The curriculum design in each DoWMAT academy ensures that the needs of individual and small groups of children can be met within the environment of high-quality first wave teaching, supported by targeted, proven interventions where appropriate.

Subjects are planned to ensure the progression of knowledge and skills across the school.

Programmes of learning are designed and sequenced with the aim of developing skills and knowledge which move towards a clearly defined end point.  Pupils have the opportunity to build upon what has been taught before and to transfer key knowledge to long-term memory. We want our pupils to know more and understand more, but we also want them to be “explorers” of knowledge, confident in their own abilities and choices.

Experiences of activities, visits to places and encounters with people or background context provide stimulus for, and models of how knowledge is gained and used for purpose. The design and planning of our curriculum makes explicit the weaving in of authentic experiences which give pupils the opportunities to see where knowledge and learning could take them.

We recommend that schools summarise the knowledge and skills to be acquired in each unit of work in each year group in Knowledge Organisers. 

Formative assessment should inform teaching, and lessons should be planned so that they are pitched appropriately and matched to children’s specific needs. New learning should build on prior learning and each lesson should be part of a logical sequence of progression. 

• We build regular opportunities for staff in our academies to develop their subject knowledge and pedagogy through individual and group training
• Our area Hub groups focus on key aspect of curriculum provision and provide support across academies
• We encourage staff to attend webinars, training days, and development activities offered by external providers
• The training needs of staff are routinely linked to their development targets and Performance Management
• We deliver bespoke training to new entrants to the profession
• Our Curriculum Research and Development group provides support and challenge for all our academies in aspects of curriculum development

To read our full DoWMAT Curriculum Statement, please click the link below;