Our Curriculum

At Plaistow Hill, we are proud to put the children at the centre of everything we do. Our compassionate team are committed to providing opportunities of growth for those who pass through our gates and for all children to have an array of enriching experiences to inspire a life-long love of learning. We are very fortunate that our school is at the heart of the community and our Learning Academies Trust curriculum, which was co-created by subject leaders throughout our eighteen schools, has evolved to reflect this ensuring that the community’s needs are being addressed through the ambitious education that we offer. Our increasingly diverse curriculum celebrates difference and fosters a greater understanding of others through the teaching of acceptance and empathy. Our school values, alongside our comprehensive PSHE programme of study, are two key threads that run through our curriculum uniting us as a school community and empowering our students to become responsible, rounded citizens who are well-prepared for life in modern Britain. This collaboration helps us celebrate diversity and foster a greater understanding of others through teaching acceptance and empathy. Our school values and comprehensive PSHE (Personal, Social, Health, and Economic) education program are integral to our curriculum, uniting us as a school community.

Our knowledge-rich curriculum, primarily based on United Learning and 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. We believe that providing these strong foundations establishes the building blocks for later success, including academic achievement, good health and well-being. 

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.

Our day-to-day curriculum is enriched through a variety of after-school clubs. We have dedicated, specialist PE coaches who have created and run a diverse timetable of sporting clubs from multi-skills to netball which are always over-subscribed and these clubs work to engage children in a variety of sports.  Not all clubs are sports-based and they do change on a termly basis allowing us to offer experiences ranging from Christmas craft to well-being and science club to Maths!

Plaistow Hill is part of the Children’s University, so we fully encourage children to attend clubs both inside and outside of school and celebrate this through the issuing of the Children’s University Passports and their stamping. Music is enriched through a specialist music teacher who visits the school weekly and provides individual music lessons as well as working with whole cohorts teaching a variety of instruments. As well as this, our strong links with our local secondary school enables us to offer further opportunities where children and staff work together in musicals and performances. This secondary school link extends through the whole curriculum where our work is enriched with workshops, trips and the sharing of knowledge and expertise in all subjects.

|At Plaistow Hill, we are proud of our dynamic and evolving curriculum. As our school community and city demographics change, and as external factors influence the needs of our children, our curriculum will continue to be evaluated and refined. By constantly improving our understanding of how children learn, we ensure that what we offer leads to positive outcomes for all our pupils.

Teaching Our Curriculum

Our teachers plan the following:

• Knowledge Organisers: Outlining essential knowledge and vocabulary all children must master.
• Lesson Cycles: Carefully planning for progression and depth in each subject.
• Low-Stakes Quizzes: Regular testing to support learners' ability to retain information and increase working memory space.
• Enrichment Activities: Including trips and visiting experts to enhance learning experiences.

Measuring Curriculum Outcomes

We measure the impact of our curriculum through:

• Reflection on standards achieved against planned outcomes.
• Tracking gains in each quiz.
• Pupil discussions about their learning.
• Sampling pupils' work across the school to demonstrate mastery and greater depth of understanding.

 Our curriculum has been carefully constructed to meet the needs of the children at Plaistow Hill using the following resources and programmes.  

 Please click on the links below for further information:Read, Write, IncScience Music PE Art and Design Computing Design Technology HistoryMathsEnglish Geography Modern Foreign Languages 

Religion and World Views