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Our Curriculum Intent

Curriculum Summary 

To find out more about our curriculum, please contact one of the following members of staff via our school office.

Email: office@williamfordschool.co.uk; Phone: 0208 270 6582       

Curriculum leadership    

Teaching, Learning and Curriculum leader: Mrs Louise Legg

Language and literacy leader (writing, reading, phonics, French) : Mrs Linda Freeland

STEM leader (science, mathematics, DT, computing): Miss Rosie Albany

Humanities leader (RE, history, geography): Ms Sarah Nash

Creative and wellbeing leader (art, music, PE, PSHE, RSE, collective worship): Mr Richard Wakeford 

Our context (London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and Village ward):

Our vision:

Learning from Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, to work diligently, act generously and live at peace with everyone.  Psalm 34:14 - Seek peace and pursue it.

With Barking and Dagenham being one of the most deprived areas of the country, and the school’s foundation being ‘to educate the local poor,’ our vision provides the path not only to improve the lives of all pupils but for them to generously better the lives of others around them within the school, locality and further afield. Our transformational education provides a route out of poverty through the raising of aspirations and encouraging our pupils to work diligently, providing a mirror into their own culture along with a window in the cultures of others in order to promote tolerance, understanding and peace – all enshrined within British and Christian values.

Our curriculum intent

Inspired by our Christian vision, we believe that education is the route out of poverty and to a successful future within Barking and Dagenham.  As a result we:

  • Empower children of all abilities, interests and backgrounds to work diligently and explore a range of future career opportunities across the curriculum through our ‘purposeful learning’ approach.
  • Engage through our 11 activities which enrich the curriculum and the pupils’ school experience, ensuring pupils’ adopt a healthy lifestyle and make a difference to the community in which they live through acting generously.
  • Ensure our support is effective for all pupils, providing them with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed academically and emotionally whilst being prepared to benefit society.
  • Enable the exploration and expression of opinions, beliefs, differences and attitudes through opportunities such as The Big Question, Spirituality Day, School Vision and Values days. These allow the pupils to disagree well in order to promote peace, consideration and connection with something or someone bigger than ourselves.

Our implementation

In every lesson, and for every child, we will ensure we provide opportunities for collaboration, creativity, critical thinking and communication as we support children in developing skills and gaining knowledge through an ambitious, well sequenced and awe-inspiring curriculum.

William Ford has an exciting approach for our curriculum – ‘Purposeful learning, engaging activities.’  A curriculum where children have a real or fictional purpose to the learning or are working towards a purpose at the end of the unit.

Fictional world examples

  • Researching the stone age to produce a documentary for BBC1 - Producer
  • Learning about UK geography in order to produce a weather forecast for William Ford TV – Meteorologists 
  • Redesigning our school garden to the Governor’s requirements in order to apply fraction knowledge – Designer/Gardener
  • Planning and running their own zoo – learning about animals and their habitats/diets – risk of who could eat who.  How do we maximise the area the animals have when we only have a set amount of fencing (area/perimeter – can be made harder by bringing in compound shapes and circles) – Architect
  • Running Santa’s toy shop – DT moveable toys/maths 3D nets – Designer/Sole trader/Trader
  • Bringing the British Museum to Dagenham – Curator

Real world examples

  • Writing letters to post/send - Advocate
  • Producing artwork to display for others’ enjoyment including our friends in Colombia - Artist
  • Applying our maths to justify our opinions – e.g. the playground is too small – Designer; Mr. Buckingham is drinking too much tea etc – Dietitian/Health advisor
  • Producing their own textbooks to send to our friends in Colombia - Author
  • Producing/selling and performing their own poetry anthology – Poet/Performer/Publisher
  • Run their own science symposium – demonstrating experiments they have done across the year and what they show – Scientist/Events co-ordinator

William Ford has an exciting approach for our curriculum – ‘Purposeful learning, engaging activities.’  A curriculum where children have a real or fictional purpose to the learning or are working towards a purpose at the end of the unit.

Our approach to the curriculum is inspired by ‘Mantle of the Expert’ (Heathcote). The sequencing of the curriculum is research informed by the spiral curriculum (Jerome Brunner) and is research led. Key concepts of each subject have been identified and repeatedly revisited throughout the curriculum but with deepening layers of complexity and application.  Our curriculum builds on, rather than repeats pupils’ prior learning.  It is based on three principles: cyclical learning, learning by building on prior knowledge and increasing depth (mastery). One of the most important factors influencing learning is what the learner already knows (Ausubel). Our aim is that pupils are able to improve, build upon and apply key skills in all subject areas allowing them to know more and remember more by ensuring lessons are sequential and that knowledge and understanding is embedded within meaningful contexts.. 

Our impact

Our approach, utilising ‘Purposeful Learning; Engaging Experiences’ results in a relevant and exciting curriculum that prepares pupils for life in 21st century.  Pupils are enthused, securing strong outcomes and receiving a positive view of education that lasts into the future. They are inspired regarding future careers and further study. This is achieved through pupils:

  • Knowing they are working for a purpose
  • Knowing others will see and benefit from the work, including their local community
  • Knowing they can bring about change
  • Feeling strongly about an issue and wanting to communicate their thoughts following a debate/discussion
  • Feeling inspired through examples from others
  • Use of learning environments to support the learning – especially some of our corridor themed areas
  • Experiencing visits, speakers and workshops

William Ford pupils have a strong understanding and commitment to British Values and the desire to enhance their communities through working diligently, generous acts of service and high levels of tolerance and understanding in order to promote peace.  They understand how to keep themselves and other safe, physically and mentally, including a knowledge of healthy living and loving relationships.