Curriculum Overviews

Our focus on providing a world class learning experience begins in our beautiful Early Years setting where foundations for future success begin. Our EYFS children learn through the continuous provision of play-based provocations and experiences, exploring and discovering learning for themselves and the world around them, in highly engaging classroom settings and a bespoke outdoor learning environment. A more direct instruction teaching approach is adopted for the all important teaching of phonics, number and early writing, ensuring that central core knowledge and skills are developed so that the rest of the curriculum is easily accessible and can flourish as the children transition to the National Curriculum in Year 1.

The Programmes of Study below present a very broad outline of the content of our Curriculum from EYFS - Year 6. 

WCPS-EYFS-Curriculum-Programme-of-Study-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-Year-1-Year-6-Curriculum-Programme-of-Study-2022-2023.pdf

In our subject overviews below, you will see that the curriculum is designed to be knowledge-rich, with Core Knowledge and Hinterland Knowledge being carefully sequenced, ensuring that the children's understanding of key concepts and their schema of the world progressively builds.

Core Knowledge

The Core Knowledge presented in the curriculum overviews for each subject presents what sits at the heart of a unit of work in a subject and what teachers aspire will move from pupils working memory into their long term memory as the unit progresses. If pupils can retain the core knowledge taught, they will have a comprehensive and solid understanding of each subject's curriculum content. 

Hinterland Knowledge

The Hinterland Knowledge presented in the curriculum overviews for each subject presents learning opportunities that might arise as a result of exploring the Core Knowledge and the themes and content of each subject's curriculum. By displaying potential Hinterland avenues and themes in the curriculum overviews, we hope for the pupils’ schema and understanding of the world to be broadened, aiming for pupils’ curiosity to be provoked and challenged, inspiring them to develop new interests and understand a subject beyond the Core curriculum taught. 

Skills

Vital Skills are also clearly displayed and are frequently revisited across subjects and year groups, helping ensure the children feel confident and can experience success as they progress term on term, year on year, using and applying the knowledge they are acquiring in a rich, variety of ways.

Experiences & Provocations

You'll notice that each subject's curriculum overview is also framed with ideas of potential Experiences & Provocation opportunities that support bringing the content of the subject's curriculum alive. Cognitive science frequently references the fact that if children live, breathe, see, hear and touch the curriculum taught, the knowledge explored becomes 'sticky', supporting the transference of key information from a child's short term memory to long term memory.

Wonder...

Each curriculum subject also displays a series of I wonder... rhetorical questions. These have been drafted with the aim of providing ways to grab the children's curiosity and provoke further questions about concepts and themes, helping broaden the children's schema and understanding of the subject and wider schema of the world. 

Vocabulary

Each unit of work displays core Vocabulary linked to the content knowledge of a unit of work, supporting the children's learning and understanding of key concepts.

WCPS-English-Writing-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-English-Word-Reading-Phonics-Spelling-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-English-Reading-Comprehension-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-Mathematics-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-Science-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-RE-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-Computing-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-Art-Design-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-Geography-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-French-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-Design-Technology-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-History-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-PSHCE-RSE-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-PE-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWCPS-Music-Curriculum-Overview-2022-2023.pdfWe aim for the children to experience the curriculum through questioning and challenge with the rich addition of elements of our school's 'Prep Life' enrichment offer. We are lucky to have such a well resourced school, helping bring our learning to life. 

We benefit from a Specialist Subject classroom, often used for Art, Music, Science and Design & Technology lessons where possible, and in EYFS and KS2, we enjoy our own Forest School woodland classroom. The whole school benefits from having access to plenty of green space in and around the wider College campus. 

Children with additional needs

At Wymondham College Prep School, we work tirelessly to ensure that the curriculum we are delivering to our pupils can be accessed by all, no matter what their need. We do not believe in putting a lid on pupils learning by restricting or narrowing our curriculum offer. We want all pupils to be able access the curriculum at all levels. For some pupils, this might mean that we need to tailor the curriculum so that it is the right fit for them. We will scaffold, support, differentiate and resource in different and unique ways, as required, to ensure that not only we meet our aim of allowing every child to flourish, but also to meet our statutory requirements of the Equalities act 2010 and Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014.

For further information about Wymondham College Prep School’s curriculum offer, please contact Mr. Simon Underhill head@wymondhamcollegeprepschool.org