Through our curriculum, we prioritise pupils’ moral and personal development. We are passionate about our children having the courage to make the right moral choices, regardless of who is watching. Opportunities for pupils’ moral development are prioritised
through: our Rights Respecting ethos, P4C, our history curriculum (where pupils learn about equalities and discrimination in various periods); our PSHE curriculum; our book choices (which contain moral dilemmas and pertinent issues) and through exposure to carefully selected role models.

Our pupils learn about how to be learners through Building Learning Powers and our Owls for Resilience, Reciprocity, Reflectiveness and Resourcefulness. We teach the children Co-op Values (Self-help, Self-responsibility, Democracy, Equality, Equity and Solidarity) both explicitly and implicitly through our Learning Challenges and Assemblies and a Co-op culture of Openness, Honesty, Social Responsibility and Caring for Others. British values are planned into our curriculum through subjects like Geography, History, RE, PSHE and, Co-op Curriculum and our Rights Respecting work.

In PSHCE the pupils learn about relationships and sex education through the Manchester curriculum. We also teach Real Love Rocks in Year 6 and the NSPCC PANTS programme through school. We follow the Manchester iMatter curriculum. We have a strong commitment to outdoor learning and we are a Forest School. All our pupils in Key Stage 1 and Foundation stage do weekly Forest School sessions and Key Stage 2 pupils do a block of sessions during the year.

Global learning is a key part of our curriculum. We actively encourage our children to have a good knowledge of the world and develop a sense of responsibility for global issues. Each class is linked to a continent and learns about that continent across the year. In Year 5 the children follow the Global Scholars Programme and we have an active Eco Council who work on global and local environmental issues. Through our Rights Respecting work we support a global charity each year and the children learn about global issues in the classroom and in assemblies.

We know that a significant number of our pupils do not experience the arts and sports outside of the academy day so we deliberately plan a wide range of opportunities for creativity through art, design, music and sport and deliver music and PE though an external music teacher, who spends half a day a week with us, and professional coaches from City in the Community. Our Year 4 pupils perform an interpretation of a Shakespeare play each year at a Manchester theatre as part of the North West Drama Shakespeare festival.

We include Wow experiences and educational visits in all our Learning Challenges to expose our pupils to as many experiences as we can. Along with visitors and workshops, these also link to our carefully planned Careers Related Learning Programme.

Learning collaboratively is also important to us and we used Kagan and TASC to support this way of learning. Along with P4C this helps us to develop the pupils as creative thinkers with the ability to ask questions and explore themes. This is important to us as we believe we have a responsibility to empower our pupils to be able to hold their own and express their opinions with pupils locally, nationally and globally to prepare them for life.

At Co-op Academy Broadhurst we aim to provide motivating first-hand experiences whilst encouraging children to build resilience, ambition and a lifelong love of learning. We believe that warm and positive relationships between staff and children, consistent routines and strong relationships with parents are key. We aim to build on the wealth of knowledge and skills children already have when they arrive and are actively developing relationships with parents and feeder settings through our home visits, stay and play sessions and transition visits. 

We recognise that all children are unique, celebrating and welcoming differences within our school community. We understand that children develop physically, verbally, cognitively and emotionally in an environment which values all cultures, communities and people. Therefore, our curriculum is child centred and we enhance it with the interests and fascinations of the children. Our curriculum is enquiry based and  follows the Early Years Statutory Framework for the Early years Foundation Stage 2021. This document specifies the requirements for learning and development in the EYFS and provides the prime and specific areas of learning we must cover in our curriculum. 

We understand that play is an integral part of learning and this is at the heart of our early years curriculum. We are passionate about children leading and engrossing themselves in their learning. We need to embed a language of learning based on the characteristics of effective learning; ‘Inspiring learning, growing together’, our whole school approach, enables children to understand and talk about their learning experiences using the following words – Challenge, Determination, Being Positive, Taking a Risk, Independence and Effort.

In Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 we follow the expectations of the National Curriculum through a Learning Challenge approach. The learning is planned around 4 learning challenges across the year with the final one being a whole school learning challenge.

In Key Stage 1 we continue with the principles from Foundation Stage and the children are taught as small focus groups and by using continuous provision to develop skills and embed learning. We believe this way of learning suits the majority of our children and enables us to really focus on basic skills and language development.

We plan and teach English using the National Curriculum. English is mostly taught through our Learning Challenge themes and linked to a class book. We use the class book to teach reading alongside specific guided reading activities. We use question mats to develop comprehension skills and teach guided reading through VIPERs. We also use Literacy Shed and scenarios for inspiring writing. We teach spelling using the year group word lists and through spelling families. Vocabulary and language development is a key focus of our English curriculum due to the deficit that is apparent when the majority of our pupils join our
Academy.

Maths is mainly taught discreetly using the National Curriculum objectives. We teach reasoning and mastery and ensure that pupils are taught within their year group expectations where possible.We follow the White Rose Maths Programme. We also teach guided maths, weekly, with a specific focus on arithmetic.

Science is taught both discreetly and as part of Learning Challenges where appropriate. We follow the programmes of study from the National Curriculum.

ICT is taught through the use of PCs, laptops and iPads using the Teach Computing Scheme. All classes learn computing and programming.

Inclusion is at the heart of our Academy and we firmly believe that all our children have a right to learn and progress alongside their peers no matter what their needs are. We ensure our curriculum is accessible to all and we do not offer our children with additional needs a reduced or slimmed down curriculum. We ensure they are supported to access and progress through the curriculum. Children with additional needs are supported through a graduated response system, starting with quality first classroom teaching. Children with higher needs are supported through proven interventions delivered by a qualified SEND Teaching Assistant, in class TA support as well as outside agencies where needed. Children are assessed through Educational Psychology, Speech and Language therapists and other agencies and where needed additional funding is acquired through Education, Health and Care Plans.