Our Curriculum Vision

At Great Yarmouth Charter Academy, the principle that guides our curriculum vision is participation. We believe that a well-taught, high quality curriculum should equip pupils with knowledge that will allow them to participate meaningfully in the world -  i.e., it should empower them to take ownership of how they participate in the world.

In practice, this means our curriculum should do three things:

i) Ensure pupils are able to direct the course of their future study and employment prospects

ii) Endow pupils with cultural capital that will enable them to contribute to wider cultural life and the political conversations of the day

iii) Enrich pupils’ lives through an appreciation of knowledge for its own sake.

To help us achieve these goals, we ask four questions that support and underpin our curriculum design and monitoring. They are:

i) Is this ambitious?

ii) What cultural capital does this provide?

iii) Do we need any specialist support?

iv) How are we promoting reading and literacy?

i) ambition

Our curriculum is ambitious because we think about how we can teach our pupils the best knowledge we have. Each of our subjects specify a core entitlement that is taught to all pupils so they can participate in school life. Within this, we carefully select and sequence the knowledge that is taught to our children to ensure that it is ambitious. We do this, for example, through careful selection of texts in literature.

At Great Yarmouth Charter Academy, we believe our pupils are capable of participating meaningfully in the world. To support this we teach pupils powerful knowledge. That is, knowledge that allows pupils to think beyond their everyday experiences and make generalisations. To do this, we teach a curriculum that is rich in knowledge and broad and balanced.

ii) cultural capital

Our ambitious approach ensures that the futures of the children who attend Charter are not limited by the curriculum. Indeed, our curriculum increases pupils' cultural capital, opening up opportunities for our pupils, whether that be to choose how they participate in the further study and  employment, or by allowing them to participate in wider social, cultural and political conversations of society.

iii) specialist support

Great Yarmouth Charter Academy is lucky to be part of Inspiration Trust - widely acknowledged as a national leader of curriculum thinking. This means that our school has access to a team of experts who provide specialist support for our curriculum design and implementation. 

iv) reading and literacy

While we believe that reading is an essential part of any child’s education, pupils being able to read it is not enough. At school, pupils should read regularly in order to develop fluency and familiarity with literature of all kinds. Pupils who read regularly are more likely to appreciate knowledge for its own sake and are in a better position to become lifelong learners as they have access to the world’s supply of knowledge, and in turn increasing their future study and employment prospects and allowing them more opportunity to shape or change how they participate in the world. To do this, we promote disciplinary literacy. That is, reading and literacy in all subjects - not simply English. Consequently, our pupils become fluent in the language and vocabulary of all the subjects they study in school.