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Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
At Clarendon Academy, the curriculum has been thoughtfully and strategically designed to create subject experts, while being mindful of our school’s context. To provide a broad context for learning, our curriculum is built around a ‘Big Picture’, in which the core substantive and disciplinary knowledge needed to become an ‘expert’ is sequenced as a learning journey. We want students to not just know what they are learning, but why they are learning it and how it all fits together. This knowledge is ordered to build on prior knowledge, ensuring that students’ learning is cumulative and coherent. This careful sequencing is complemented by interleaving, where topics are revisited and integrated to reinforce learning and create connections. We know that learning needs repeating for students to learn more and remember it for longer.
At Clarendon Academy, we are proud of being a highly inclusive school and this is reflected in our context. Evidence from the Educational Endowment Foundation (EEF) shows that factors such as economic disadvantage and unmet special educational need or disability (SEND) can lead to educational barriers or gaps. At Clarendon Academy, 27% of our students receive free school meals, but we are very aware that many more are ‘just about managing’ due to the rising costs of living, and 19% have SEND. Many of our students also have gaps in learning due to moving between schools.
The careful sequencing of our curriculum enables our disadvantaged, SEND and transient students to flourish as subject experts. The reason for this is that our ‘Big Picture’ curriculum is built on a core of ‘unmissable content’: the most important knowledge and skills required to move forward in each subject. Reinforcing this enables curriculum progression and thereby ensures that every Clarendon student - regardless of their starting point - has the best chance of success. Our curriculum design also features regular Recover, Practice, Extend (RPE) sessions, and these provide ongoing opportunities for students to fill gaps, consolidate and extend their knowledge. Knowledge retrieval starter tasks and revision-based homework reinforce and deepen understanding of this “unmissable” content, creating the bespoke flexibility and support needed within our diverse, inclusive and vibrant context.
