Our Wider Curriculum
Welcome to our wider curriculum page. At Shakespeare, we provide all of our pupils with a rich and varied curriculum that helps them to gain a greater understanding of the world in which they live. Our curriculum has been designed by all of our teachers as part of the Learning Academies Trust and then adapted to meet the needs of our pupils.
Our knowledge-rich curriculum, primarily based on the National Curriculum, has been heavily influenced by our local area and the history that surrounds the school and the city of Plymouth ensuring content is both relevant and accessible yet also broadens horizons and raises the aspirations of our pupils. Geography and History, along with the core subjects, are key drivers for our curriculum and we are passionate about providing a varied and diverse range of enrichment opportunities to bring our curriculum to life making it all the more memorable and enjoyable for our children as well as maximising opportunities to use the children’s community, heritage and traditions as a hook into their learning.
As a staff, we share the genuine belief that everyone is entitled to an outstanding education no matter of their circumstances and our welcoming and inclusive school community follows a curriculum based upon current research on cognitive science so that it allows our pupils to know more, understand more and do more. Knowledge and skills are taught in a progressive manner through a spiral curriculum to ensure coverage and provide opportunities to revisit key concepts in every discipline, making and building on links to support the transfer of information into the long- term memory and encouraging deep thinking and enquiring minds.
Further tailoring of our curriculum, addressing the needs of our community, has meant that we have placed Oracy at our core; recognising the importance of these skills and how they impact on life chances and opportunities. Through these strong foundations based around talk, a love of words and reading is instilled in our pupils enabling them to access a broad and balanced range of subjects that support the development of the whole child and promote a positive attitude to learning.