Curriculum Ethos

At Horizon Primary Academy we believe that every child can achieve and become exceptional learners. 

Our curriculum is therefore designed to work in conjunction with our teaching and learning model and curriculum intent aims to ensure that all of the children are successful on the journey towards exceptional.

Horizon Primary Academy is built on the philosophy that everyone is always kind, always ready to learn and always tries their best and the curriculum is therefore underpinned by this philosophy too. 
Through the curriculum, we aim to build on the aspirations from families and the community and develop these further to ensure that a mindset is cultivated across the school community where children fundamentally believe that they can achieve anything, exceed their potential and learn without limits.

At Horizon Primary Academy, we believe that it is vital that, in today’s current society, everyone is a passionate and committed global citizen, understanding the challenges that face the world today and in the future to ensure that we all contribute to making the difference that is needed for sustainability. Integral to our curriculum is a strong focus on enquiry and discussion of issues, providing children with the skills to tackle big questions at school and in the future.
With a strong sense of local community, we feel it important to enhance the impact of this and to continue to broaden children’s horizons, raising their awareness of their place in London, the United Kingdom and worldwide.

We passionately believe that language and vocabulary are vital tools for success at school and in future learning and employment. Through our curriculum, we therefore actively develop, promote and embed the use of language through the development of subject-specific vocabulary and ensure that discussion and collaborative learning are a key part of our curriculum approach. 

At Horizon Primary Academy, we understand and actively engage with the diverse community in which we live and are committed to ensuring that children acquire a strong understanding about difference and respect as well as a depth of knowledge about the significant contribution made by people from across the diverse makeup of society throughout history and today.

At Horizon Primary Academy it is our unrelenting aim to ensure that we continually build our exceptional learning community and, through our curriculum, strive to ensure that all members of the school aim high, spread their wings and learn without limits, creating passionate learners who want to make a difference in the world they live in today and in the future.

For more information about the curriculum or for alternative forms of the curriculum information on the website, please contact the school via admin@horizon-tkat.org and make a request for more information FAO Mrs Wright, the curriculum leader.

Purpose and Aims of the Curriculum

  • To raise aspirations and know that no dream is too big
  • To enlighten children on the opportunities within the world of work
  • To expand children’s knowledge of the world
  • To build children’s understanding of the local community
  • To build good local and global citizens
  • To build positive values for education and life   
  • To build a love of learning and the acquisition of knowledge

Key Principles of the Curriculum

Learning is enquiry-based, allowing children to ask and answer questions and develop inquisitive minds. Children answer learning questions in lessons and big questions over time.

Discussion is at the heart of the learning and is a feature of the majority of lessons. Paired, group and class discussions help to build and clarify ideas and thoughts.

Collaborative learning is central to the curriculum. Children learn from each other and learning together helps children to build understanding and make connections in their learning. Children regularly learn in pairs or groups throughout the curriculum.

Language acquisition is fundamental to learning – without words, children do not have a framework in which to learn. To develop conceptual understanding children must build a rich vocabulary within and across subjects.

Learning is connected, both within and across subjects and with links to real life and the world of work. This makes learning meaningful and purposeful to the children, builds conceptual understanding and supports them to want to learn more.

Key Concepts

For each subject in the curriculum, key concepts have been identified. These are the big ideas within each curriculum and are defined by the following criteria:

  • A concept that is fundamental to the subject

  • A concept that an expert in a subject would have a good grasp of

  • A concept that builds and develops over time

  • A concept that is a thread across topics and contexts

These key concepts help to structure the content of learning for each subject. They provide a lens through which to study within each unit of work.

Key concepts are revisited throughout the years at the school and these concepts grow in complexity over time, always providing opportunities for children to build on previous conceptual understanding from prior year groups or units of work in previous terms. This allows children to build a ‘web of learning’ or schema within these concepts, leading to them knowing and remembering more.

Disciplinary Knowledge

Disciplinary knowledge is identified within in each subject curriculum. This is the knowledge of the methods that establish the substantive facts. These are mapped against each unit of learning within each subject.

Core Knowledge

Within each unit of learning in every subject, core knowledge is identified as truth statements. This is knowledge that is deemed to be the most significant and relates particularly to the key concepts that have been a focus within the unit.

Core knowledge helps support the continual growth of conceptual understanding over time.

Retrieval practice is used to recall and revise core knowledge in order to secure learning into the web or schema, moving learning from the working memory and into the long term memory.

The Horizon Whole-School Curriculum Overview maps out key subjects throughout each year and over the course of each key stage.

To ensure progression across and between year groups and sequences key concepts within and sometimes across subjects through EYFS, KS1 and KS2.

Whole School Curriculum