The Department for Education guidance about the school curriculum can be found at https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum

Our Curriculum

Intent

At Norfolk Community Primary School, our curriculum is designed to ensure every child develops secure foundational knowledge, strong core skills, and the personal qualities needed to thrive in learning and in life. This intent aligns with our whole‑school vision—“Working Together to Be the Best We Can Be”—and supports our aim to improve outcomes across Early Years, Phonics, Reading, Writing, and Maths.

Our curriculum is structured around six Big Ideas that provide coherence, breadth, and a meaningful moral and cultural framework for learning:

• Peace and Freedom
• Equity and Social Justice
• Sustainability and Environment
• Participation and Citizenship
• Health and Wellbeing
• Diversity and Identity

These Big Ideas act as conceptual threads that connect knowledge within and across subjects, helping pupils build schema and secure long‑term understanding. They reflect our trust and school priorities around inclusion, wellbeing, rights respecting practice, and preparing pupils for life in modern Britain .

Given our high levels of SEND, pupil premium, and speech and language needs, securing foundational knowledge is essential. Our intent is that all pupils—especially the most vulnerable—acquire firm mastery of early concepts in language, reading, writing, mathematics, and personal development before progressing to more complex content. This aligns directly with the SDP priorities for closing gaps, improving oracy, and ensuring a well‑sequenced, ambitious curriculum for all learners.

Implementation

We deliver our curriculum through carefully sequenced, knowledge‑rich programmes of study, explicitly mapped from Nursery through Year 6. This includes a whole‑school progression model for foundational knowledge and skills, ensuring that pupils revisit and deepen essential concepts over time.

Key features of our implementation:

1. Sequenced knowledge underpinned by the Big Ideas

Teachers plan units that build step‑by‑step, connecting core subject content to each term’s Big Idea. This ensures learning is meaningful, coherent, and rooted in real‑world context, supporting moral development, critical thinking, and cultural understanding .

2. Securing foundational knowledge across all subjects

• Clear progression of early reading, phonics (RWI), and language development.
• Structured teaching of number sense, arithmetic fluency, and core mathematical ideas.
• Systematic practice of vocabulary, sentence structure, and transcription in writing.
• Strong focus on early and sustained development of oracy, 
   

3. Adaptive and responsive teaching

Through ongoing assessment and adaptive teaching strategies, staff make real‑time adjustments to meet the needs of SEND, EAL, and disadvantaged pupils. Approaches such as scaffolding, modelling, and structured rehearsal support pupils to reach ambitious curriculum goals.

4. Building cultural capital and broad experiences

Assemblies, educational visits, leadership opportunities, and community engagement are embedded across the curriculum. These enrich learning and support to build a positive school culture, wellbeing, and personal development.

5. Rigorous monitoring and quality assurance

Subject leaders conduct regular reviews, book looks, pupil voice interviews, and data analysis to ensure curriculum fidelity and impact.

Impact

Our curriculum aims to secure measurable improvements in pupil outcomes, personal development, and long‑term preparation for the next stage of education.

1. Improved academic outcomes

Success is defined by closing the gap with national benchmarks in:

• EYFS GLD
• Phonics
• Reading, Writing, and Maths
• KS2 Combined outcomes
   

2. Secure foundational knowledge

Pupils demonstrate strong recall, fluency, and confidence in key concepts across subjects. This includes:

• Automaticity in early reading and writing
• Secure number understanding
• Confident use of vocabulary and oracy skills
• Conceptual understanding connected to the Big Ideas

3. Personal development and character

Pupils develop the Norfolk Navigator characteristics—Curious, Resilient, Ambitious, Articulate, Knowledgeable, Reflective, Excited—which underpin their behaviour, attitudes, and readiness for life beyond primary school.

4. Inclusion and readiness for the next stage

Our curriculum ensures pupils with SEND, EAL, and disadvantaged backgrounds make progress from their starting points. Evidence of impact is gathered through progress data, case studies, attendance improvements, and reductions in persistent absence.

5. A cohesive, values‑driven school community

Through the Big Ideas, Rights Respecting Schools practice, and high expectations, pupils develop a strong sense of identity, belonging, and responsibility. They understand fairness, justice, diversity, wellbeing, and global citizenship, reflecting the moral purpose of our curriculum design.