OUR CURRICULUM

At Hooe Primary Academy, we are proud to place children at the heart of everything we do. Our dedicated and compassionate team is committed to providing opportunities for growth and success for every child who walks through our doors. We strive to offer a rich range of experiences that inspire a lifelong love of learning and help children achieve their full potential.

As part of the Learning Academies Trust, our curriculum has been carefully developed by subject leaders across the Trust's family of schools and continues to evolve to meet the needs of our pupils and community. Through an ambitious and inclusive curriculum, we celebrate diversity, nurture curiosity, and foster understanding, acceptance, and empathy. Our school values, alongside our comprehensive PSHE curriculum, provide the foundation that unites our school community and empowers pupils to become responsible, respectful, and well-rounded citizens who are prepared for life in modern Britain.

Our knowledge-rich curriculum, based on the National Curriculum and Learning Academies Trust curriculum design principles, is strongly influenced by our local area and the rich heritage of Plymouth. This ensures learning is relevant and meaningful while broadening horizons and raising aspirations. Geography and History, alongside the core subjects, play a key role in helping pupils understand the world around them. We are passionate about providing diverse enrichment opportunities that bring learning to life and enable children to make meaningful connections between their studies and their local community.

As staff, we firmly believe that every child is entitled to an excellent education, regardless of their background or circumstances. Our welcoming and inclusive school community embraces a curriculum informed by current research into cognitive science, enabling pupils to know more, remember more, and do more. Knowledge and skills are carefully sequenced through a progressive curriculum that allows children to revisit and deepen their understanding of key concepts, strengthen long-term memory, and develop the confidence to think critically and ask thoughtful questions. These strong foundations support future success, academic achievement, good health, and positive well-being.

To further meet the needs of our community, we have placed Oracy at the heart of our curriculum. We recognise the significant impact that spoken language skills have on life chances and future opportunities. Through purposeful opportunities for talk, discussion, vocabulary development, and reading, we foster confident communicators and enthusiastic learners. These foundations support children in accessing a broad and balanced curriculum while promoting a positive attitude towards learning.

Our curriculum is enriched through a wide range of extracurricular opportunities. Specialist PE coaches provide a diverse programme of sporting activities, from multi-skills and football to netball and athletics, encouraging participation and enjoyment for all. Alongside sport, pupils have opportunities to engage in a variety of clubs and enrichment experiences that change throughout the year, ranging from arts and crafts to science, wellbeing, and mathematics, ensuring there is something to inspire every child.

Through our ambitious curriculum, strong values, and commitment to excellence, we aim to ensure that every child at Hooe Primary Academy leaves us as a confident, knowledgeable, and compassionate individual who is ready for the next stage of their education and beyond.

At Hooe Primary Academy, we actively encourage children to participate in clubs and activities both within and beyond the school day, celebrating their achievements and experiences whenever possible. Our strong links with local secondary schools provide additional opportunities for our pupils, including collaborative projects and musical performances. These partnerships enrich the wider curriculum through workshops, educational visits, and the sharing of knowledge and expertise, helping to broaden children's experiences and aspirations.

At Hooe Primary Academy, we are proud of our dynamic and continually evolving curriculum. As our school community grows and changes, and as the needs of our pupils develop, we regularly review and refine our curriculum to ensure it remains relevant, engaging, and ambitious. By continually deepening our understanding of how children learn best, we strive to provide an exceptional educational experience that enables every child to achieve positive outcomes and fulfil their potential.

Teaching Our Curriculum

At Hooe Primary Academy, our teachers carefully plan learning to ensure pupils build knowledge, skills and understanding over time through a well-sequenced and ambitious curriculum. This includes:

• Knowledge Organisers: Clearly outlining the essential knowledge and vocabulary that all children are expected to learn and retain.
• Learning Journeys and Lesson Sequences: Carefully planned progression that builds understanding and develops mastery within each subject.
• Retrieval Practice and Low-Stakes Quizzing: Regular opportunities for pupils to revisit prior learning, strengthen memory, and improve long-term retention.
• Enrichment Opportunities: Educational visits, visitors, workshops, and real-life experiences that bring learning to life and deepen understanding.

Measuring Curriculum Impact

We evaluate the effectiveness of our curriculum through:

• Assessment of pupils' progress against planned learning outcomes.
• The use of retrieval activities and quizzes to identify and secure learning over time.
• Pupil voice activities and discussions about learning.
• Monitoring and sampling pupils' work across the school to demonstrate knowledge, skills progression, and depth of understanding.
• Ongoing review and refinement of curriculum provision to ensure it meets the needs of all learners.

Our curriculum has been carefully designed to meet the needs of the children at Hooe Primary Academy, ensuring that every pupil develops the knowledge, skills, confidence, and aspirations needed to succeed both in school and beyond.