Curriculum Intent:
At the Axis Academy, our KS2 curriculum fosters happy, engaged learners through an adaptive, nurturing, and individualised approach. We aim to inspire curiosity, resilience, and confidence through enquiry-based learning, ensuring every pupil is supported to thrive both academically and personally. By promoting creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking, we nurture a lifelong love of learning and prepare well-rounded individuals who are equipped to face future challenges with confidence.
Our rich, balanced, and inclusive curriculum is delivered through a cross-curricular approach that develops pupils’ knowledge, skills, and understanding in meaningful and engaging ways. Learning is carefully sequenced using progressive skills ladders built from the National Curriculum, allowing children to build on prior knowledge and make sustained progress. Topics are chosen to reflect pupils’ interests and lived experiences, encouraging connections across subjects and deepening understanding. Immersive experiences, including purposeful school trips, enrich the curriculum and act as real-world anchors for learning. High-quality class texts linked to each topic enhance literacy development across reading, writing, and vocabulary.
We are committed to meeting the diverse needs of all our learners. Regular assessment informs flexible groupings and ensures teaching is appropriately scaffolded or extended. Aspirational targets are set for each child, ensuring high expectations for all. Stakeholders play an active role in curriculum development, with parents kept informed through weekly communication and published curriculum overviews. By creating a safe environment where pupils can take risks, explore ideas, and reflect on their learning, we help them become independent, resourceful, and confident individuals—ready for the next stage of their educational journey and beyond.
English:
At Key Stage 2, our English curriculum is designed to develop articulate, thoughtful, and confident communicators through a strong focus on reading, writing, oracy, and vocabulary. We use rich, diverse texts as vehicles to deliver high-quality teaching that fosters both technical skills and a genuine passion for literature and language.
Our intent is to immerse pupils in a wide range of high-quality fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and plays that reflect different cultures, time periods, perspectives, and voices. Through this varied literary diet, pupils build a deep appreciation of language while encountering themes that broaden their worldview and nurture empathy.
Reading lies at the heart of our curriculum. Pupils are taught to read fluently, critically, and for pleasure. We prioritise comprehension, inference, and analysis, enabling children to explore authorial intent, theme, and structure. By regularly engaging with rich and challenging texts, children develop the stamina and resilience required for future academic success.
In writing, children are taught to express themselves with creativity, accuracy, and purpose. They learn to write in a wide range of genres, understanding audience and intent, and applying grammar and punctuation with increasing precision. Opportunities for extended writing are embedded across the curriculum to encourage fluency and coherence.
Oracy is integral to our approach, empowering pupils to speak confidently, listen actively, and participate in discussions with clarity and respect. Through debate, performance, storytelling, and presentation, we develop their ability to express complex ideas and opinions effectively.
A strong emphasis on vocabulary acquisition underpins all learning. Tiered vocabulary is explicitly taught and revisited to ensure pupils have the language they need to access texts, articulate ideas, and build knowledge across the curriculum.
Above all, our intent is to cultivate a lifelong love for reading and writing. Through purposeful, engaging, and inclusive learning experiences, we equip pupils with the skills and confidence to thrive in secondary education and beyond, both as learners and as individuals.
Maths:
At Axis, Maths in KS2 aims to provide a secure foundation in number and the four operations of; addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
By delivering a balanced and comprehensive curriculum that builds upon prior knowledge, previous learning and attainment levels, we foster problem-solving and critical thinking, preparing students for future academic and professional success.
Through frequent practice, learners can recall knowledge rapidly and accurately. The maths curriculum provides opportunities for learners to understand how to reason mathematically and apply their understanding to a variety of problem-solving problems.
The interconnected nature of mathematics is shared with learners to enable them to interpret different representations of mathematical ideas and use their knowledge to the support the wider curriculum.
The provision of life experiences for our children is very important at Axis. Through various opportunities we enhance the delivery of our curriculum and the lives of our children by inspiring them and building their curiosity to ultimately have a positive effect on their outlook on life.
Science:
The KS2 Axis Science curriculum intends to develop, in our pupils, a lifelong curiosity and interest in the sciences, encouraging inquisitiveness throughout their time at school and beyond.
Our Science curriculum fosters a healthy curiosity in children about our universe and promotes respect for the living and non-living. We believe science encompasses the acquisition of knowledge, concepts, skills and positive attitudes.
Throughout the programmes of study, the children will acquire and develop the key knowledge that has been identified within each unit, as well as the application of scientific skills.
We ensure that the working scientifically skills are built-on and developed throughout children’s time in KS2 so that they can apply their knowledge of science when using equipment, conducting experiments, building arguments and explaining concepts confidently and continue to ask questions and be curious about their surroundings.
We understand that it is important for lessons to have a skills-based focus, and that the knowledge can be taught through this, opportunities to learn through varied systematic investigations are key in developing greater independence in planning and carrying out fair and comparative tests, answering a range of scientific questions.
We deliver a broad and balanced science curriculum which stimulates and maintains children’s natural curiosity. Key scientists, significant discoveries and theories are studied to give the children a real-life understanding of concepts taught. Where possible, real-life examples are used in lessons to give our children a deeper understanding.
History:
At The Axis Academy, our KS2 History curriculum inspires curiosity about the past and helps learners understand how history shapes the world today. Through the study of British history, ancient civilisations, and non-European societies, pupils explore key concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, and significance.
We teach children to think like historians—asking questions, using evidence, and considering different viewpoints. Pupils develop confidence in using historical vocabulary, including terms like civilisation, empire, and parliament, and apply their knowledge across local, national, and global contexts.
By examining the complexity of people’s lives and cultures, our curriculum promotes empathy, critical thinking, and a deeper understanding of diversity in the past and present.
Geography:
At The Axis Academy, our KS2 Geography curriculum nurtures curiosity about the world and develops pupils’ understanding of the diverse places, people, and environments that shape our planet. Through enquiry-based learning and real-world exploration, children investigate both the physical and human features of geography, building the knowledge and skills needed to interpret the world around them.
Our intent is to inspire learners to think geographically — to question, compare, and make connections between local, national, and global environments. Pupils learn to use maps, globes, digital technologies, and fieldwork to observe, describe, and analyse the world’s landscapes and the human processes that influence them. They explore topics such as rivers, mountains, settlements, and climate, understanding how these natural systems affect everyday life and how people interact with them.
Geography at Axis develops core skills in enquiry, data interpretation, and communication. Pupils are encouraged to investigate key questions, present findings creatively using digital tools, and reflect on their role as global citizens who can make positive contributions to a sustainable future.
Music:
At its heart, the KS2 Music curriculum at Axis fosters joy, teamwork, and resilience. By performing together, composing creatively, and listening thoughtfully, pupils gain confidence, discipline, and a sense of belonging. We aim for every child to leave KS2 with a strong appreciation for the power of music—to inspire, connect, and enrich their lives.
Through adaptive teaching and carefully sequenced progression ladders, every learner is supported to build on prior knowledge and achieve success. Trips, outdoor learning, and immersive experiences enrich classroom study, bringing geography to life and strengthening real-world understanding.
Our aim is for pupils to leave KS2 with a strong sense of place, a deep respect for the environment, and the confidence to explore and make sense of an ever-changing world.
What does our learning journey look like? Primary Road Maps Year A