If you would like to find out further information on the curriculum at Barley Croft, please continue reading or contact the school to speak to our Curriculum Lead, Alex Easton.

At Barley Croft we provide a curriculum which is ambitious, innovative and rich in experiences in order to equip our children with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in modern society. We have designed our curriculum with the diverse needs of our community at its core. Our aim is to nurture well-balanced young people ready to flourish on their journey through life. We foster children’s aspirations and encourage them to realise their potential.  

Much of our curriculum is taught through "REAL Project" (Rigorous, Engaging, Authentic Learning). Subjects taught via REAL Project are: science, geography, history, DT and art. REAL project stands for ‘Rigorous, Engaging, Authentic Learning’ and we place importance on each of those elements in order to run a successful curriculum project. Subjects are linked to augment learning and support children to make links between subjects. Through the REAL projects, children are able to develop deep content knowledge, as well as learn and develop their critical thinking, creativity and communication with a real-world, meaningful and authentic outcome.  

The focus on making learning relevant and meaningful incorporates practical experiences for our children, using both the local environment and further afield. Teachers plan a “take off” and “landing” for each unit of work. These will engage the children in the project initially, and conclude it in a meaningful and public way.  

The whole school will also focus on 5 key themes as part of the projects spanning 2 years.  These are: 

• Our School 
• Our World 
• Our Community 

• Our Enterprise 
• Our Well-being 

Projects cover all of these throughout the course of a two-year cycle in KS2 and KS1 will complete them all with the exception of our enterprise. The 'landing' of each project should seek to address one of these themes. For example: a community engagement event (community), a school-improvement project (school), fundraising for charity (enterprise) etc.  

Subjects which do not fit into the REAL Project approach are taught discretely, usually via a Scheme of Work. These are outlined below:

• Music - Leicestershire Music Hub
• PSHCE - Jigsaw and Votes for Schools (KS2 only)
• Computing - Teach Computing
• French - Language Angels
• PE - Rising Stars Champions
• RE - Leicester City agreed syllabus

Knowledge Organisers
Click on the PDFs below to see our latest project knowledge organisers

2. Learning Behaviours

Developing the right attitude to learning is an essential part of the Barley Croft curriculum and we place as much emphasis on how we learn as what we learn.  We aim to create a whole school culture that enables children to become better learners, while dealing with risk and uncertainty confidently and creatively. Our Learning Powers are based on the research of Guy Claxton in his book Building Learning Power.

At Barley Croft, Building Learning Powers:

• is a learning culture that encourages children and teachers to become better learners
• allows children to approach difficulties in learning without fear of failure
• allows children to take small steps within learning
• develops confidence
• is not additional to teaching, but should be grounded within every day teaching and learning
• gives clear labels for the children to use in order to develop understanding of the learning processes.

If you wish to know more about Building Learning Powers at Barley Croft, please see the attached information.