Our Curriculum 2025/26

Our Intent: What do we want for our pupils?

At Melbourne Junior School, we are committed to fostering a curriculum that promotes active participation, nurtures ambition, and builds a strong sense of belonging. We want every child to feel included, valued, and empowered to take part in their learning journey.

Our broad and balanced curriculum is rooted in the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will help our pupils thrive in the wider world and in the next stages of their education. We aim to equip our children to make meaningful contributions in school and beyond—whether they go on to become engineers, entrepreneurs, academics, teachers, designers or pursue other exciting paths. We hope the education they receive with us lays the foundation for full, happy and successful lives.

While we follow the National Curriculum, we actively seek opportunities to enrich learning with experiences that help our pupils become global citizens—open-minded, tolerant and curious about the diverse cultures and communities that make up the UK. We want our children to be ambitious for their futures and confident in their ability to shape them.

We encourage every child to be an active participant in their learning: to ask questions, explore ideas, share opinions and reflect on their progress. Our curriculum is designed to build knowledge and skills year-on-year across all subjects, while our wider offer includes sport, music, visits and events that deepen learning and broaden horizons. Woven throughout are our core values, helping children to be PROUD of their education—Purposeful, Resilient, Organised, Understanding and Dedicated.

We are committed to inclusion, ensuring our curriculum is accessible to all pupils, including those with special educational needs or disabilities, those who are disadvantaged, and those with English as an additional language.

Implementation

Our curriculum is implemented through the discreet teaching of all National Curriculum subjects. We deliver carefully planned, sequential units of work that build on prior learning and encourage children to see themselves as young geographers, scientists, artists, designers, historians and more.

We use a blend of published schemes and our own planning to ensure high-quality teaching. We place strong emphasis on rich vocabulary, carefully chosen reading materials to foster lifelong readers, and regular retrieval practice to consolidate learning.

Impact

We know our pupils develop a deep interest in a wide range of subjects and are well prepared for the next stage of their education. Progress is assessed regularly through teacher assessment and formal summative assessments. In Reading, Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling and Mathematics, children sit annual written assessments to support teacher judgement. Writing is assessed frequently and moderated both internally and across our cluster of schools.

In foundation subjects, progress is measured through teacher assessment, guided by clearly defined knowledge expectations for each year group. This ensures that all children are supported to achieve and succeed.