Primary

Intent

Our curriculum at Primary is focused on providing child-centred, individualised learning opportunities for all children, to help them develop as autonomous learners who are increasingly self-aware. We pride ourselves on a ‘stage’ not ‘age’ focus to ensure we support our students in the best way possible. For pupils whose needs are best met by the early year’s foundation stage framework, which in some instances may include pupils of secondary age, we focus on the 6 areas of learning: Communication, Language and Literacy, Mathematical Development, Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development, Understanding of the World and Expressive Arts and Design.

Implementation

The delivery of the curriculum is based around learning through play and social exploration to engage children with active learning and to become critical thinkers. Our two-year topic cycle ensures breadth and balance of learning. We plan for our pupils as individuals or small groups and use goal setting around EHCP objectives, for those who have one. This ensures that learning is relevant, personalised and promotes the balance between SEMH and academic progress. In addition to our classroom curriculum, we offer a bespoke wraparound of learning outside the classroom, with a variety of outdoor opportunities and interventions which link directly to our curriculum.

Impact

The restorative curriculum that has been created has a clear focus for all of our students including those who are short stay. This is, accurate assessment and compensation for lost learning, to narrow the gaps in education they have experienced before arriving with us. This approach helps us to work with our local authority partners to determine next steps in terms of education placement if a long-term placement with ACE is not appropriate.

Themes and Topics

We run topics on a 2-year rolling programme, this forms some of the many creative elements of our primary curriculum. Our themes are an additional feature to the core subjects. The creative topic forms the content of the nurturing elements of our curriculum such as art and design, textiles, culinary and learning outside the classroom. At Ace Schools, we have a strong desire to understand and foster all our students as unique individuals, because of this we also explore personal strengths and interests, ensuring these are firmly embedded in parts of our students’ timetables.

Reading

At ACE, we strongly believe that reading is a fundamental life skill. Having a strong command of the English language enables young people to speak and express themselves clearly, listen to others and to read and write for a wide range of purposes. Through reading, children are able to communicate and express themselves and their ideas coherently, creatively and imaginatively. Through reading a wide range of texts in different genres, cultures and different times in history, children gain the opportunity to become enthusiastic and critical readers of stories, poetry and drama, as well as of non-fiction, media texts and graphic novels. It is our intention to ensure that all pupils read widely and confidently with accuracy, fluency and comprehension appropriate to their stage.

Key Principles:

To provide a language rich environment that promotes a culture of reading and writing.
To develop an interest and a love of books and literature, which will not only support their learning across the curriculum but also enrich their lives.
To value and use books as a basis for learning, pleasure, talk and play.
To value and celebrate diversity in culture and language
To help pupils become confident, independent readers, through an appropriate focus on phonics, word, sentence text-level knowledge and the reading of pictures.
To develop enthusiastic and reflective readers, through contact with engaging, challenging and substantial texts.

English

At ACE Schools, we aim to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature. We are a RWI/Fresh start school and all students on entry (after a nurtured transition), have a reading assessment. Primary students usually then follow one of these reading programmes, which also incorporate key writing skills. Additional literacy sessions are built around our topics and student interests. They focus on considered and specific interventions which are intuitively planned to meet individual needs, provide writing opportunities, level appropriate SPAG and handwriting.

Maths

At ACE primary we have a firm belief every student should have the opportunity to develop their understanding of maths. This is nurtured by the adults who work with them, both within their scheduled maths lessons but also, throughout their learning outside the classroom and everyday experiences. We are committed to support our students with the understanding of mathematical ideas, knowledge and skills, because we strongly recognise the subject’s increasing importance in society. Our primary team follow The White Rose curriculum and teacher assessment is used on entry, to level students at the appropriate stage. We ensure strategically planned schemes of learning break down national curriculum objectives into finely tuned steps, providing objective led opportunities. We ensure real life resources such as; numicon, cubes, interactive ICT resources, clocks and games are used to support students in reaching learning outcomes. We also consider maths focuses as a team when planning for our learning outside the classroom, to ensure we capture every learning opportunity and help students to connect learning with their lives outside of school.

Science

Ace primary is committed to ensuring students have the opportunity to develop life-long curiosity about the natural world. We aim to provide curriculum opportunities which enable students to seek scientific explanations to the phenomena around them. We foster curiosity and personal interests to ensure we provide enriching experiences, which keep our students engaged. Learners will develop a holistic approach to science by combining scientific thinking and practical skills alongside knowledge and understanding. Our well-resourced Active Learn platform means we are able to provide a well-rounded experience to suit all our learners’ individual needs, we ensure we bring these topics to life through experiments and sensory experiences.

PSHE

At ACE Schools we use a mindful approach to PSHE, bringing together Personal, Social, Health Education, emotional literacy, social skills and spiritual development. We focus on tailoring the lessons to our students needs and to enjoy building the relationships and getting to know them better as unique human beings. Teaching strategies are varied and are mindful of preferred learning styles and the need for differentiation. We follow Jigsaw as a whole school approach, with all year groups working on the same theme at the same time. This enables a generation of a whole school focus for adults and children alike. Because of the unique setting we work in, we understand our students needs and are able to compliment Jigsaw with additional, individual intelligence led sessions, which are focused specifically on individual areas of interest or development.