What drives our curriculum? What is Manor Park's intent?

Our absolutes as key curriculum drivers are: Equity, Diversity and Future Aspiration.

“Learning together, success forever”

Our Curriculum Intent:

At Manor Park we aim to provide children with an inclusive and ambitious curriculum that develops high standards of Reading, Writing and Maths and is specifically tailored and reflective of the local demographics of our school.

We fulfil all statutory content in line with current guidance as well as ensuring our curriculum is dynamic, diverse and outward-facing, keeping up to date with society’s social, moral and educational changes.

We are conscious that our school sits within an ex-mining area and a proportion of our children experience high levels of deprivation and financial challenge. This results in some of our children having limited experiences of what the wider world can offer them in terms of our rich and diverse society as well as the potential for achieving economic security.

Therefore, within our progressive curriculum, we provide our children with knowledge-rich experiences of what they need to know and understand. Alongside developing strong sustainable knowledge foundations, we also endeavour to equip them with a thirst for their futures.  Our ultimate aim is to provide our children with both the knowledge and “switch on” to education, which starts them on their learning journey they will need to be successful in the next stage of their education and thrive in the world of work.  

We purposely plan our curriculum to include a range of opportunities for our children to be immersed in understanding about people and the protected characteristics. This is permeated through positive reinforcement within many aspects of our provision to address and combat prejudice, stereotyping and any other unconscious pre-conceptions that our children may have. Our children intrinsically understand we all welcome diversity wholeheartedly. We want our children to develop their individual identities, empathise with others and feel a strong sense of belonging within their own community. Our aim is to ensure that at school everyone is included, valued, respected and well-prepared for an aspirational and successful futures as global citizens in the wider world.

Curriculum Implementation:

We plan and deliver our curriculum via Curriculum Drivers. These are purposely called ‘drivers’ as it is key we have a shared understanding that they differ to just being ‘topics’. They are intended to be more than a knowledge based cross curricular topic. They essentially need to also act as the conduit in taking our children on their journey to understanding increasingly more about Equity, Diversity and Future Aspiration.

Each Driver is underpinned with clear progression of subject specific knowledge and skills which are planned out from our progression documents across every year group.  Curriculum Drivers are also designed to build towards a purposeful outcome that children have to work together in achieving and which links to a trip, a visitor, an expert or experience. This serves to provide a more tangible real-life connection in their lifelong learning journey.

Our teachers plan for long, medium, and short-term lessons. This has clear intent and is enhanced with exposure to wider enrichment opportunities for all learners that compliment learning in school. All of this is built upon a number of curriculum key concepts that provide the base for progressive threads of learnt knowledge through each subject area. These are also used as the foci for memory recall prompts within provision that enable children to make links to previously learnt knowledge.

Our evolving and developing pedagogy is acutely concentrated to re-activating prior learning (high 5s) and improving access to learning for all learners, supporting children’s memory retention and reducing cognitive load.

Children’s immersive learning is enhanced further through a varied range of enrichment opportunities both within our taught curriculum work and through a variety of other opportunities. These include visits, visitors, assemblies, after-school clubs, performances, themed days, school council, community and business links/events and liaising with the wider community via our website and class Dojo, launching September 2025.

Curriculum Impact:

Our children show intellectual curiosity, questioning the world around them and problem-solving. They develop the flexibility to work independently, collaboratively and creatively.

The curriculum enables our students have confidence in their futures. The wisdom, skills, knowledge, relationships and experiences they gain are equipping them for their next steps in their learning journey.

Our children learn through the curriculum structure to constantly revisit prior learning, building links to new understanding. They practice and apply these skills by finding opportunities to connect their understanding both within the curriculum and in the wider context.

Manor Park children understand that learning is a process that requires determination and skills. Each child works towards developing to their full potential because staff have strong relationships with them and understand their learning needs. Through swift assessment and intervention, staff ensure all children are challenged.

Children have a greater understanding and interest about future opportunities through the real- life links and experiences we bring to them. They show an increasing depth of understanding and maturity about the 9 protected characteristics.

Through an adaptive and highly inclusive approach, we ensure all children receive a broad and balanced curriculum, enabling them all to achieve their individual potential.