Opening Worlds Curriculum

The Opening Worlds Curriculum at Locking Primary School

The ‘Opening Worlds’ Curriculum:

From September 2023, we have adopted the Opening Worlds humanities curriculum for history, geography and RE.  

Opening Worlds curriculum and its associated teaching approaches will secure the highest possible quality of education for pupils. This is because the curriculum ensures that the subjects reflect the wide reference and academic practices, outside of school, to which they refer. In addition the material is organised so that pupils use earlier material to access to later material and so that pupils start to see how everything connects within a subject.

 Opening Worlds has strongly recommended that the material is taught in sequence because each part makes the next part much more understandable.  Numerous words that are explicitly taught and practised in Year 3 are then taken for granted in lessons in Year 4-6.  If children do not have the secure knowledge of the content and vocabulary of the Year 3 curriculum this is likely to slow progress and limit enjoyment.

All key stage 2 children have, therefore, started with the Year 3 Opening Worlds curriculum.  As a result of moving from the school’s previous curriculum to Opening Worlds, the school has identified a small number of content gaps.  These have been noted and will be addressed through our choice of books that are used in English and read to children, field trips and during assemblies. 

Intent of the ‘Opening Worlds’ curriculum:

The uniqueness and background of every child is recognise and valued. Because of this, our curriculum covers a range of cultural, historical and ethical backgrounds and offers purposeful and meaningful experiences to apply, share and develop this knowledge . Our diverse, culturally rich, wide-scoping and rigorous/coherent curriculum is underpinned by the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, concepts and values in a rigorous and coherent way. Explicit links to story telling and creativity are made to ensure children to engage and enthuse learners.  Many enhancement and enrichment activities are used throughout the curriculum to engage learners and create purposeful, high leverage outcomes that give children the opportunity to use and apply their developing knowledge and skills. Our aim is to create an environment that prompts curiosity, critical thinking and allows learners to connect strands of learning across all aspects of the curriculum.

The Structure of the curriculum: 

This approach has a coherent, chronological and rigorous structure that ensures that links are not only made across individual subjects but also across each of the topics covered. This means that knowledge is gradually and successfully built upon and children make explicit links using their previous knowledge. This is consistently revisited and retrieved. Below, the coverage of each humanities subject

The table below shows how the curriculum will progress over the coming years. The yellow highlighting shows when cohorts will be taught the correct year group curriculum for their age.