Curriculum Maps
For further information on our curriculum, please contact us.
Our curriculum vision
At Berry Brow Infant and Nursery Academy, we deliver a broad and balanced curriculum that is exciting, creative and meaningful which recognises the importance of communication, language and reading to successfully access the rest of the curriculum. It is rooted in our core values of the ‘4Rs’ (Respect, Resilience, Responsibility and Reflection) and links closely to our vision.
i-Challenge
Through the ‘i-challenge’ curriculum we provide access to a wide range of opportunities that promote pupils’ emotional, physical and intellectual development. Activities provide pupils with opportunities to develop the ‘building blocks’ of successful life skills, such as teamwork, resilience, responsibility and friendship. Through ‘i-challenge’ we focus on how children learn and this is underpinned by building relationships, building teamwork and building confidence.
Geography
Our geography curriculum aims to provide our children with quality first hand experiences whenever possible, creating excitement and wonder through studying the world beyond the classroom. Initially, our focus is on their immediate environment and the local landscape including hills, moors, crags and rivers. During our residentials, children are able to explore the wider environment, in a contrasting locality, to provide them with an opportunity to compare and contrast their understanding of geographical areas, both urban and rural. Through our carefully tailored curriculum, children will develop into explorers. We aim to enthuse children about the possibilities that their world has in store for them to explore. Our children will leave school with a sense of their place in the world, both culturally and physically, and a desire to enquire into the world around them.
History
Our history curriculum aims to provide our children with a sense of time through an understanding of people, places and objects. The children will learn about the experiences of others and of significant events from the past through quality first hand experiences, artefacts, historical texts and other primary and secondary sources. Our children will practise the Berry Brow building blocks of teamwork, relationships and confidence in order to gain a broad and balanced understanding of their local, national and world history. Our children will leave school with a chronological awareness of historical periods, an understanding of people and their impact on the world as we know it today.
Science
At Berry Brow Infant & Nursery Academy, we teach science in a way that ensures children have a concrete understanding of chemistry, biology, physics and geology. We believe science is not about having the right answer but instead is about a set of processes and skills which allow us to better understand, question and reason with the world around us. Our science curriculum follows the national curriculum and is progressive throughout the school so that each topic and skill can be built upon one year after another. In each year group there are a variety of investigations which involve tangible experiences that teach the children a range of scientific enquiry skills. We have constructed our curriculum, not only for the children to have a breadth of knowledge, but to have the depth also.
Music
Our music scheme is first and foremost to help children to feel that they are musical, and to develop a life-long love of music. We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need in order to become confident performers, composers, and listeners. Our curriculum introduces children to music from all around the world and across generations, teaching children to respect and appreciate the music of all traditions and communities.
Computing
Through our computing curriculum we aim to give our pupils the life-skills that will enable them to embrace and utilise new technology in a responsible and safe way to ensure that pupils become digitally literate and digitally resilient. At Berry Brow Infant and Nursery Academy the safety of our pupils is paramount. We take online safety very seriously and we aim to give children the necessary skills to keep themselves safe online.Â
Art / Design Technology
At Berry Brow Infant & Nursery Academy our Art curriculum has been designed to expose children to a rich and varied diet of creativity and Art history. We believe that high-quality Art lessons will inspire children to think innovatively and develop creative understanding. The Art curriculum provides children with opportunities to develop their skills using a range of media and materials. Children learn the skills of drawing, painting, printing, collage, textiles and 3D work.
Through a variety of creative and practical activities, pupils will have the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in an iterative process of designing and making.
PSHE
Our responsive PSHE programme is at the centre of the school curriculum, providing opportunities to teach concepts, knowledge, language, strategies and skills that enrich the wider curriculum. Here at Berry Brow Infant & Nursery Academy, we are preparing our pupils to be able to flourish and thrive with the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life in modern day Britain. We use the SCARF programme from CORAM life education. Our adaptive and inclusive curriculum meets the needs of all our pupils, including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) by adapting teaching and learning to suit all children and all abilities. We ensure that our curriculum fosters gender equality and LGBT+ equality by ensuring the quality of an inclusive and diverse curriculum. External visitors are used within our PSHE programme. They are carefully selected and enrich learning, provide expert input and act as role models throughout our PSHE provision.
RE
The Berry Brow Infant & Nursery Academy R.E curriculum recognises the importance of developing our pupil’s as individuals so they can grow up to be responsible citizens. It develops our values, behaviours, knowledge and understanding of religions and beliefs. The Berry Brow Infant & Nursery Academy RE curriculum is based on the Local Agreed Syllabus for Calderdale, Kirklees and Leeds produced by SACRE for teaching from September 2019…
Physical Education
Berry Brow Infant & Nursery Academy aims to inspire all children to develop a love of physical activity and sport. Through quality physical education, whole school values and a whole child approach, we aim to nurture confident, resilient children who will strive for their personal best. We listen to our children’s wants and needs and provide them with a broad range of active experiences and clubs. We want to aid our children in obtaining the values and skills to celebrate and respect the success of others, as well as celebrating their own successes…Â
Love for Reading
Reading is a main driver of our academy and children are taught to know the importance of reading. At Berry Brow Infant and Nursery Academy we promote a love of reading in many ways such as: library visits; author visits and more. At Berry Brow Infant and Nursery Academy, we believe story time is an integral part of the children’s day. Story time is a huge part of developing our children’s love for reading, that is why we have carefully selected the books we read to our classes. We believe that all children should have the opportunity to imagine themselves as the main protagonist in a story. We have made sure this is possible by creating a journey of Berry Brow Best books. We have selected a range of books that link to these criteria: cultural, diverse, world and current issues, current, topical and books that show our children’s demographic and socioeconomic background.
Reading & Phonics
Reading is a huge part of life at Berry Brow Infant and Nursery Academy, we foster a love of reading and encourage children to read and enjoy a wide variety of books to nurture a lifelong love of reading. We put all our efforts into making sure that children develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read.
We start by teaching phonics to the children in the Reception classes using the Essential Letters and Sounds programme. This programme is followed with rigour and fidelity by all teachers and teaching assistants. Discrete whole-class phonics lessons are taught to all children, daily in Reception and Year One. To ensure that learning is embedded, flashcards and reading opportunities continue throughout the day and additional phonics teaching is given to identified children. Phonics remains the main strategy that we use to approach/decode unfamiliar words and spelling across the school.
Through reading, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know. At Berry Brow Infant and Nursery Academy we highly value reading as a key life skill and are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers with a love of reading. We believe reading is the bedrock of success in education. Encouraging and enhancing children’s motivation to read for pleasure is a key driver in our academy through our Love of Reading provision.
Reading at Home
Reading at home is essential to enable all children to succeed in their learning. Each child is provided with a home reading book matched closely to them. Reading is the cornerstone to your child’s learning, and, as such, we encourage children to read at home for 15 minutes every night. We celebrate your child’s reading through rewards in our Celebration assembly.  Reading for 15 minutes each day will build your child’s reading stamina and wider vocabulary. Please support your child to enable them to become a confident reader.
