Overview

The Primary Years Programme (PYP) is a transdisciplinary curriculum framework that offers authentic learning experiences.

The PYP encourages students to learn to appreciate knowledge, conceptual understandings, skills and personal attributes as a connected whole.

OUR PROGRAMMES OF INQUIRY core text overview

IB World School …

Our curriculum covers all the requirements of the National Curriculum but is arranged around inquiries into six different Transdisciplinary Themes. Leigh Academy Oaks is an IB World School, authorised to deliver the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme.

IB International Baccalaureate logo

The International Baccalaureate® aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.

Overview of the PYP framework

The LAO curriculum is delivered within relevant and purposeful contexts, is built upon prior learning, and is designed to be challenging, interesting and motivational to all pupils. We aim to create inquiring, lifelong learners who respect and care for the world they live in and all those who live in it. LAO learners will understand how they are connected to the world in order to take action to improve their own lives, and the lives of local and global communities.

Our learning community strives to create chances for dreamers, idea makers and innovators. We hope to empower our pupils to use their skills as divergent thinkers, responsible role models and leaders to carve out their own futures, and become extraordinary citizens.

We set high expectations for all our pupils. Practitioners give every child the opportunity to experience success in their learning, by providing a relevant and challenging curriculum.

The Leigh Academy Oaks (LAO) curriculum is delivered within relevant and purposeful contexts, is built upon prior learning and is designed to be challenging, ambitious, interesting and motivational to all pupils and is rooted in research and current thinking.

  • Every child is recognised as a unique individual and we celebrate and welcome differences within our diverse school community.
  • We aim to create happy inquiring, lifelong learners who respect and care for the world they live in and all those who live in it.
  • LAO learners will understand how they are connected to the world in order to take action to improve their own lives and the lives of local and global communities.
  • Our curriculum has been developed to meet the needs of Leigh Academy Oaks students and has been designed with them specifically in mind to teach them that rather than be inhibited by their circumstances, they should be inspired.
  • The LAO curriculum celebrates diversity and utilises the skills, knowledge and cultural wealth of the community while supporting the children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, ensuring that children are well prepared for life in modern Britain.
  • Community involvement is an integral part of our curriculum, learning about, with and from it.
  • The curriculum will be underpinned by the National Curriculum (NC), the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (IB PYP) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It will be entrenched through conferencing and an effective cycle of evaluation by all stakeholders.
  • Teaching staff will not only plan and deliver the curriculum, they will be responsible for monitoring and driving the impact and effectiveness of all subjects and opportunities for learning for all pupils, overseen by the Curriculum Lead. This will ensure that the curriculum is not only broad, balanced and inclusive but that all pupils learn the skills, knowledge and understanding significant to their stage of learning and for achieving their ambitions in life, building upon and augmenting these year on year.
  • Everything about the curriculum is designed to be aspirational through experiences and opportunities for all pupils to enrich their learning and instil a culture of ambition and being big, bold and brave.
  • Through the Pupil Employment Scheme (PES), all pupils will learn about the life of work and possible careers and what is required to achieve what they want to do.
  • Inclusion and well-being are at the heart of Leigh Academy Oaks to be certain that all pupils know and understand how they are a valued member of society, how it is their right to feel and to be kept safe and how to maintain their own positive well-being.
  • At the heart of the curriculum are the skills, knowledge and personal development pertinent to each stage of a child’s growth as organised in the NC, the IB PYP and the SDGs.
  • The NC provides the core requirement of academic skills and fundamental knowledge across a wide range of areas of learning.
  • The aim of all IB programmes is to develop internationally minded people who, recognising their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet, help to create a better and more peaceful world (International Baccalaureate Organization 2013).
  • The Sustainable Development Goals are a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection. The Goals interconnect and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve each Goal and target by 2030.
  • A primary focus of our curriculum is to raise aspirations, engender a sense of personal pride in achievement, and provide a purpose and relevance for learning. Knowledge will be developed and skills appropriately applied through lines of inquiry, all the time widening and deepening knowledge and understanding through a well-resourced, truly broad, balanced and relevant curriculum. This will be further enhanced and complemented by challenging and collaborative projects for all pupils procuring ‘Agency’ (Voice, Choice and Ownership (IB PYP, 2018)), cultural capital and international mindedness.
  • Teaching and learning will be delivered through a range of traditional and contemporary resources with a particular focus on the most current applications in ICT to deliver the digital curriculum and blended learning. Interventions will be specific, regularly reviewed and revised and delivered within the daily teaching and learning unless agreed otherwise with the Inclusion team.
  • The Pupil Employment Scheme gives pupils opportunities to learn about the world of work whilst fostering confidence and responsibility. Planning will be strategic and highly aspirational whilst pertinent to the needs of all learners, largely influenced by and structured through the National Curriculum.
  • All teachers are subject ambassadors to help lead on subject development ensuring pupil’s outcomes and teacher’s CPD for subject knowledge are collaborative and highly effective.
  • The curriculum will be delivered through a fluid timetable organised around the lines of inquiry and achieving all knowledge and understanding for each stage of the curriculum.
  • Skills will be taught in context based conceptual learning and discreet lessons as appropriate.
  • The well-being of pupils and the Academy team will be integral to the inspirational LAO curriculum and culture and will be supported through conferencing feedback together with mutually rewarding engagement with and by the local and wider community, evidenced through the Profile for Success and community cohesion.
  • A varied timetable for co-curricular activities is offered by the school, with co-curricular sessions that support the core curriculum offer, as well as those which develop specialist skills, whilst also further extending the range of children’s experiences.
  • Long-term memory, recall and application will be enhanced through low stakes testing and critical thinking.
  • Pupils will progressively learn techniques and strategies for completing tests and assessments, including Government statutory assessments, as they continue through the school, mastering previously learned skills and acquiring new ones as appropriate. As knowledge and understanding will look different for each subject and in each stage of learning, so will the evidence of this learning
  • All pupils of Leigh Academy Oaks will have equitable learning opportunities to achieve high attainment and progress by the end of key stage 2 across a broad and balanced range of subjects and associated knowledge and understanding.
  • Through the use of context based learning and low-stakes testing, pupils will have a wealth of skills and knowledge that will remain a foundation throughout their lives. Further to this, through the LAO curriculum, pupils will be equipped to manage positive relationships and transitions through all stages in their lives.
  • Pupils will have due respect and consideration for the local and wider community and will be resilient, inquisitive, confident communicators with a strong work ethic and the desire and capacity to be responsible, principled, successful citizens.
  • The innovative practice across the school provides a strong foundation and opportunities for children to collaborate and develop safe and secure social interaction skills in all environments and circumstances.
  • This curriculum design ensures that the needs of individual and small groups of children can be met within the environment of high quality teaching, supported by targeted proven interventions where appropriate, having significant positive impact upon the outcomes of all pupils.
  • Enjoyment of the curriculum promotes achievement, confidence and appropriate learning behaviours in an environment where the safeguarding of pupils is paramount and they feel safe to try new things.
  • High quality enrichment activities and visits enhance the curriculum, particularly providing opportunities for writing for a purpose.
  • Pupils have opportunities to share their learning with each other, their parents and carers and other learners through school-based and external exhibitions, performances, competitions and events involving other schools.

Please view our dedicated Curriculum Map website for more information on the Leigh Academy Oaks Curriculum and its various components.

Subject Specific Curriculum Website

International Mindedness

International-mindedness is central to the IB mission and is a foundational principle to its educational philosophy; it is at the heart of the continuum of international education.

International-mindedness is a view of the world in which people see themselves connected to the global community and assume a sense of responsibility towards its members. It is an awareness of the interrelatedness of all nations and peoples, and is a recognition of the complexity of these. Internationally minded people appreciate and value the diversity of peoples, cultures and societies in the world. They make efforts to learn more about others and to develop empathy and solidarity towards them to achieve mutual understanding and respect (Oxfam 2105; UNESCO 2015).

Primary Years Programme (PYP) learners and their learning communities have a range of perspectives, values and traditions. The concept of international-mindedness builds on these diverse perspectives to generate a sense of common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet.

Source: From Principles Into Practice – ibo.org – PYP Resources (need password).

International Mindedness at Leigh Academy Oaks

At Leigh Academy Oaks, we are proud to work closely with some International link schools across the world. By doing so, we provide the children who attend, a broad and balanced curriculum which provides rich and diverse learning opportunities. Our children are proud to collaborate with children their age from all over the globe, tackling challenging matters such as the Sustainable Development Goals and how to make the world a better place.

Leigh Academy Oaks has link schools in Uganda and Malawi (Starfish Malawi) and are developing links with schools in the UK also. Such links provide context, meaning and real value to global education in our classrooms, helping our learners become more aware of serious world issues such as climate change, diversity, justice and equality. By participating, in both their local and wider communities, our children understand how their actions can make a positive difference to others.

We are proud that our school counts many nationalities among its pupils. Cultures, traditions, beliefs and mother tongue languages are celebrated and shared through many ways: in our assemblies (greeting children in a variety of languages spoken at our school), global days, inquiries in class, by pupils contributing to the school newsletter, visits to places of worship, visitors coming in to school to speak about their cultures.

For each unit of inquiry, the class makes links to current global affairs, the Sustainable Development Goals, our link with Starfish Malawi and any other means that are appropriate.

Leigh Academy Oaks

After School Co-Curricular Clubs

  • Reading Club: Our school library will be open for you and your adults to explore and choose books from.
  • Eco Club: Be a part of the Eco Committee who help our school achieve their Green Flag Award
  • Sports Clubs: Develop your skills in a range of your favourite sports!
  • Community Cafe: Enjoy gardening and growing produce and cooking for our upcoming cafe. Build amazing life skills and support our community with your very own meals!
  • The Arts: Perform, sing, act and dance. Could you be the next West End star?
  • Art Club: Learn about different artists and their masterpieces. Create your own!
  • Music Club: Learn to play a range of instruments
  • Ukulele Club: Learn to play and perform together as part of a ukulele band!
  • STEM: At STEM club, we welcome the next generation of scientists, engineers and mathematicians to the world of the future.

Pupil-Employment Scheme

At Leigh Academy Oaks, children in Years 3 to 6 have opportunities throughout the year to apply for various jobs around the school. Jobs for play pals, librarians, photographers, and the environmental team encourage children to take action within their school. Children write letters of application and have interviews for their positions. They keep time cards which detail their hours worked and all of these accumulate to for payment / a reward at the end of the term.

Forest School

At LAO, we have a small forest area but it is one of the favourite places for our pupils to visit. Every term, a different class participate in forest school, led by our forest leader Karen, learning how to build dens, use tools, build items from wood. Forest school encourages collaboration among pupils and develops the attributes of being a communicator, thinker and risk-taker.

KS2 classes spend 3 terms swimming weekly at Maidstone Leisure Centre. Children achieve brilliantly at these lessons, all earning badges by the end for swimming particular distances.

All pupils have the opportunity to take part in performances annually, whether this is for class Christmas shows or at any of our Church services, around Christmas, Harvest and Easter. Every year, pupils travel to the O2 in London to participate in the Young Voices event.

Our student Councillors are elected every year; there are two per class. They attend school council meetings every few weeks and discuss the meetings within their classes so that all pupils have a voice in their council. The members of the school council go on trips if our school needs some pupils to represent at an event.

At Leigh Academy Oaks, we have a dedicated PE teacher who leads class PE sessions weekly. Each class has two weekly PE sessions where pupils are taught key skills and knowledge and then apply these in game and match scenarios. Pupils are encouraged to create and develop their leadership skills within PE lessons also, by focusing on our Learner PRofile Attributes as well as our Approaches to Learning. As much as possible, pupils are given the opportunity to play games against other schools.

We have invested in new books for our library recently that have opened the world to our pupils. It is important to use that our pupils can see themselves represented in the books that we have. Our library is open during lunchtimes for pupils from KS1 and KS2 to use, whether that’s a quiet place to read or to just spend their time browsing. Pupil librarians keep the library shelves organised.

Exposing our pupils to a range of careers is important. Whether our careers visitors work in a specific field – like when our STEM ambassadors come to visit – or are jobs linked to a service that is offered to the public, it is important that pupils see a broad range of working opportunities.