Curriculum Overview and Plans

Whole-School Curriculum Vision Statement

The curriculum at Ormskirk School sets out what we want our students to know and to know how to do across Key Stages 3 to 5, ensuring that they can thoroughly enjoy a rich diet of sufficiently demanding work in our inclusive setting, and that they are as ready as possible to access the next steps of their education, employment or training, as global citizens.

Our ambitious curriculum, which covers the aims of the National Curriculum, is planned for all our students, including those with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND).  In agreeing and planning their classroom pedagogy, subject departments have carefully considered NASEN's subject-specific guidance on inclusivity. We have incorporated many these pedagogical recommendations into our whole-school Aim High Plan Support strategy.

Curriculum planning identifies where knowledge is first met and later revisited, ensuring opportunities for spaced repetition, increasing the likelihood of successful recall over time. Connections within and across subjects are regularly exploited so that students are able to build on prior learning, see the bigger picture and appreciate the wider context of their learning.

Reading and vocabulary development have been carefully considered across the curriculum to ensure that students are able to access increasingly challenging texts with growing fluency.  

With our local context and our cohorts central to our curriculum thinking, we seek to equip all students with the wealth of cultural capital they will need to live a safe, happy and purposeful life as open-minded and knowledgeable citizens of the modern, diverse world.  This has been carefully considered in the broad range of concepts students study, and the stimulating texts they read.

The curriculum is planned to ensure that students receive well-timed feedback they will need to close gaps in their learning and to stretch their learning further.  At key points, pupils and students receive SEELIT feedback, which highlights their successes, acknowledges their effort, highlights errors and literacy issues, and provides opportunities for them to complete improvement tasks.  Cumulative assessment end points have then been mapped, with subjects having clarity around the golden threads of knowledge that allow for the best possible progression through the carefully sequenced curriculum.