Curriculum Overview

‘Bringing Learning To Life: No Limits. No Barriers.’

Please click here to see our curriculum planning overview:

Curriculum Overview

Year 3       YEAR 4       YEAR 5      YEAR 6

For further details on specific learning per year group, please refer to our learning journey maps page.

our CURRICULUM intent

 

At Ocean Academy, our inclusive curriculum will challenge and nurture each child to develop a strong sense of self through a purposeful, engaging and authentic learning journey; preparing resilient and confident learners who have the knowledge, skills and cultural awareness to embrace an ever-changing world.

Our curriculum ensures the development of the knowledge, skills and qualifications required for success by ensuring that all children at Ocean Academy learn in a challenging and supportive environment through a well-developed, progressive curriculum which encourages creativity, celebrates diversity and utilises knowledge, skills and cultural experiences to become active citizens in modern Britain.

Our curriculum has been designed to:

• Be broad, balanced and inclusive
• Be reflective and adaptable to meet the needs of our learners
• Be purposeful, authentic and guided by the needs of our community
• Be highly engaging through challenge and purpose
• Develop and nurture the whole child and value each area of the curriculum equally
• Be progressive and construct strong schemas of knowledge; built on solid foundations of prior learning and understanding
• Give children the opportunity to apply their understanding to real-life, purposeful situations and scenarios
• Encourage pupil voice so that learners can have ownership, seek to improve and make connections

Ocean Academy, as part of the Aspirations Academies Trust, shares a common philosophy and a distinctive approach to education. There are three guiding principles that all Aspirations Academies adhere to and are central to the curriculum:

• Self-worth
• Engagement
• Purpose

In applying knowledge to real-world contexts and allowing young learners to take the lead in using this knowledge to find solutions and to deepen their learning, at Ocean Academy, we ensure the following nine Core Principles are clearly featured in every element of the academy’s work:

• High Expectations – Being the very best you can be in your school and community
• Opportunity – Matching your interests with activities that will help you to leave school well-rounded and confident
• Challenge – Making your learning exciting and relevant to the real world
• Talent Development – Enhancing your natural strengths and abilities so you thrive in school and beyond
• Innovation and Enterprise – Supporting your creativity by encouraging you to ask ‘Why?’ and ‘Why not?’
• Makers and Creators – Being a creator, not just a consumer, of technology in our digital world
• Global – Having the cultural awareness needed to communicate in our interconnected world
• Employability – Equipping you with the skills and abilities you’ll need to excel in our ever-changing world
• With Big Dreams and Hard Work – Aspirations means to dream about the future while being inspired in the present to reach those dreams.

 

Applied Learning:

At Ocean Academy, following the Aspirations No Limits curriculum model, our curriculum ensures that ALL learning and acquisition of knowledge is applied in an authentic and purposeful way. This provides our pupils with the opportunity to develop their ‘power skills’: collaboration, communication, critical thinking & problem solving, and character (Learning To Learn).

We are building our skills as educators to ensure Applied Learning will happen throughout the curriculum by September 2024. When acquiring new knowledge, pupils will be given the opportunity to apply their learning in authentic and purposeful ways through exploring Driving Questions.  This may be through written work, presentation, reasoning, justification, problem solving, investigation, the creation of digital products, discussion or debate, as examples.

An example of Applied Learning could include pupils using their knowledge and understanding of coastal erosion in geography to work in small teams (collaboration) to design and present (communication) a solution to a problem (complex problem solving) that has been identified in the local area and whereby people’s homes are at risk of being destroyed due to coastal erosion. They will apply their geographical knowledge, collect and analyse data (maths and computing), learn to communicate persuasively, both orally and written (English), and learning how to use presentation software (computing). We would endeavour to take a trip into the local area or invite local professionals into school to speak to us about their work in this area.

Through applied learning, our pupils make progress in their:
A. Development of knowledge: Progress in knowing more and remembering more. The future requires
the acquisition and application of a wide range of knowledge.
B. Ability to apply their knowledge: Progress in knowledge being applied in more challenging, relevant
and more engaging ways.
C. Acquisition of 21st century skills to translate knowledge into actions for success.

Please also refer to our Policies page to view our Equalities statement, SEN and Inclusion Policies.