We want to create a primary school which encourages everyone to be learners – to truly let individual lights shine. We will foster and encourage deep curiosity about the world and a passion to achieve the very best in all our children do. We want to empower children to achieve success in the future as well as preparing them for life in modern Britain.

Our core values of Love, Courage, Celebration and Community guide and focus all we do to create a curriculum that is dynamic, innovative and meaningful for the children in our community. By working with our families and community we will create an aspirational and inspirational curriculum through excellent teaching practices and experiences which enrich the curriculum. Through a progressive and sequenced curriculum, we will build on the cultural capital for all our learners.

Our curriculum ensures a thirst for knowledge and understanding by covering a wide range of subjects so that children can achieve academic, technical, scientific, sporting or creative excellence.

To achieve this, we have some guiding principles for our Academy.

 Academy Expectations

•  All classes have a class profile which is personalised to the children in that class
•     Teachers plan using the four key questions:

o   What do you want them to learn and why?

o   How are you going to show them?

o   Which activities will you do to make it happen?

o   How will they show you that they have learnt it?

•     Children will follow LEARN (Listen carefully to our teacher when they are talking. Enter our classroom on time and ready to learn. Aim to always produce work of the highest quality. Respect the rights of others by not disturbing learning. Never call out, but raise our hand politely to get the attention of our teacher).

As part of Oxford Diocesan Schools Trust, we benefit from being part of a forward thinking academy organisation who have core values (Inclusivity, Empowerment, Community, Abundant Living and Service) which are in line with our approach.

Early Years Foundation Stage

Children in Nursery and Reception follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum and use ‘In the moment planning’. This learning challenges children and encourages them to develop into independent, motivated learners and thinkers, full of curiosity about the world around them within a fun, happy and secure environment.

Our Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum is based on seven areas of learning:
•    Communication and Language
•    Personal, Social and Emotional Development
•    Physical Development
•    Maths
•    Literacy
•    Understanding of the World
•    Expressive Arts and Design

Children have opportunities to explore, enquire and to take risks through practical, hands-on learning experiences.

Implementation

At John Henry Newman Academy we embrace a pedagogy of ‘Personalised Learning’. This is an approach which aims to provide a more tailored curriculum for each child. We do this by adjusting the curriculum, our teaching style and learning environment to ensure that all children make good or better progress in their learning from whatever their starting point. The core to the success of this approach is having an in-depth understanding of each learner’s needs. We do this through developing class profiles; having a rigorous monitoring and evaluation cycle and working alongside parents to share information about their child’s progress. These strategies enable us to help children fulfill their early promise and develop latent potential.

We aim for all children, regardless of their ability, to reach or exceed national expectations by having an expectation of ambitious objectives, challenging personalised targets, systematic assessment procedures and in-depth learning conversations with pupils which will move their learning forward. Through consultations with children, families and staff, teachers are able to put clear plans in place to maintain the trajectory of progress.

We have adopted an approach to teaching and learning which expects all children to access the learning at the expected year group standard. To do this, teaching has been adapted to offer higher levels of support or more challenge opportunities within the lesson.