At Honilands we are committed to ensuring that the provision in place, including programmes and resources, gives our children the skills to access the rich knowledge they need to excel in their learning and strive to reach their true potential whatever their starting points.
We have taken on an aspirational project to develop and strengthen our curriculum. Working with Haringey Educational Parternship (HEP), we have introduced a clear 3-year development plan to implement a knowledge-based Humanities curriculum. As E.D Hirsch states, “Children need to learn facts in a highly organised and structured way... therefore creating the imperative to get back to the basics with a robust core curriculum.”
We believe our curriculum will equip our children with the cultural literacy that will provide a strong foundation for life. The Honilands Curriculum must be the key driver to engage, motivate, enrich and equip our children to become successful learners and in turn successful citizens of the world.
The three key threads that run throughout our children’s learning are based on our school context.
Children need to be ready to learn. As a school, we instil our values into our pupils to ensure they are ready to access their learning. We recognise that strong relationships are key to ensuring children come to school feeling safe and ready to learn. Our school values and British values are woven throughout our curriculum and support us in creating a positive school ethos – our school badge clearly states that ‘We are one’. Working together with the community and supporting our families, developing strong relationships with each other and all stakeholders strengthens experiences and opportunities for our children. Which then supports them to engage as learners for life.
At Honilands, we want our children to learn more and know more. We want them to thrive in an ever changing world and believe that having a mastery of ‘core’ knowledge will give them a firm foundation on which to build any new skills they may need. As such, we teach discreet subjects where children develop a deeper understanding of subject knowledge. Our school uses Knowledge and skills progression maps to support this – Art & DT, PE, Computing, Geography, History, Music, PSHE, Religious Education and Spanish.
We also use Knowledge Organisers in lessons to support the acquisition of quality, subjective specific vocabulary and to identify the ‘sticky’ knowledge that children need to know.
We believe there are certain areas of the Curriculum that can be further enhanced through the use of specific skill sets. To ensure our children receive the best possible learning opportunities, we have subject specialists to teach the following subjects:
Our aspiration also goes beyond the school boundaries. We look to enrich our children’s school experience with quality trips to places linked to their learning e.g. Waltham Abbey or the Enfield lock. We also ensure that we have visitors who also come into school to enrich their learning experiences, whether it is people who help us such as the police or fire brigade, people who can teach us more about our subjects such as holocaust survivor Vera Schaufeld MBE or authors such as Neil Zetter carrying out poetry workshops or Mr Numbervator helping to extend our pupil's interest in mathematics. Interests are also further pursued through our extensive programme of after-school clubs and sports teams that take part in Enfield inter-school competitions. Last year, our School Councillors organised a trip to the Houses of Parliament to meet with our local MP, Feryal Clark.
We are a wonderfully diverse community and recognise the rich and varied lives our children and staff live. We need to ensure our children leave Honilands secondary ready, hungry for knowledge and equipped with the skills to ensure they can independently access their learning. As part of the design, we have strived to ensure opportunities for mastery in all subjects.
To ensure our children get the best possible education, we have looked to ensure our curriculum is both coherent and well-sequenced. By carefully sequencing what is taught ensuring both skills and knowledge are progressive, we aim to build year on year on what has been taught before, strengthening our children's knowledge of the subject they are studying. This includes giving attention to the specific vocabulary that is used in the different domains of learning.
The starting point to be a learner and to be able to access more knowledge, is to be a good reader. Reading is at the core of what we do and is always one of our school priorities. Our focus on improving reading through the systematic delivery of synthetic phonics and then through developing fluency has meant that we have seen a steady improvement in our pupil's outcomes in both the phonic screening check and in KS2 SATs. Here is an overview of our approach to reading. To further support our pupils, we are currently extending our focus on quality vocabulary, embedding explicit
Part of a great school is having a great, well-trained staff. Ongoing training is part of this. As part of our work on developing History, Geography and RE our teachers have been taking part in subject workshops with Christine Counsell.
To ensure our staff's pedagogy also continues to be enhanced, we ensure ongoing training with a range of high-quality, nationally recognised practitioners and organisations.
Please see the tab under the Curriculum Menu to view our Curriculum Intent documents for each Subject.
If you require any further information on our curriculum, please contact the School Office ([email protected]) stating what you would like to know.
