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Curriculum Intention, Implementation and Impact measures

Intention

Our intention is predominantly to demonstrate to children the value of learning as a means of planning a future that fulfils their ambitions, brings them satisfaction in their career choices and enables them to be effective and well-rounded contributors to their community and the wider world.  Our long and medium term planning is organised so that children in as many year groups as possible are learning the same area of study at a level appropriate for their age.  This means that we can clearly see how learning in every subject is sequenced across the school, and staff in all year groups can plan effectively to ensure that previous learning is built upon and future learning is appropriately prepared for.   We follow the National Curriculum for all subjects.    In addition, we have made adaptations based on a rationale that takes account of our school’s locality and community; we call this the 3D’s; Disadvantage, Diversity and Decision Making.

Disadvantage: For a number of children in this community, financial deprivation is the norm and social deprivation is common. As a result, aspiration and expectations of achieving a better future can be limited.  Our intention is to offer a curriculum that opens their minds to possibilities through the topics we offer and the knowledge and information we expose them to.  We endeavour to give them experiences that they might not otherwise have and we do this in a number of ways including, prioritising extra-curricular activities, inviting visitors in to school and offering subsidies wherever possible.  In addition to this we are constantly striving to improve our offer to children with SEND, with our continuing focus being on even better access to the foundation subject curriculum and helping SEND children to see and value their own skills and talents whatever they are. 

Diversity: In recent years we have seen significant changes to the diversity in our local community and in response we have adapted our curriculum to ensure that children from all backgrounds feel represented in their learning.  The aim of this intention is for our non-white British children and girls to also see themselves represented in as many walks of life as possible, and as a result maintain their motivation and aspirations; if she/he/they can do it then so can I.  

Decision Making: We believe that children should learn early in life that they can make choices and decisions related to their learning and learning behaviours and as such, should have the opportunity to take control of their next steps in learning, be involved in class and whole-school decision making and ultimately, in their future lives.  For many of our children, life is hard, so supporting them to build resilience by encouraging them to take chances, share their ideas, learn from mistakes and try again, is fundamental to our practice.  

Implementation

We use a wide range of resources and strategies to help deliver our curriculum intention.  Our long-term curriculum mapping is organised so that wherever possible children across the school are learning the same or similar topics.  For example, the P.E. curriculum is organised so that all children are learning the same strand, such as dance or gymnastics, at the same time.  This allows teachers easy access to prior learning information to use when planning and to share with their children; they can also refer to what is coming next to further facilitate explanations of how learning builds as children progress through the school.  

Our teachers plan in teams to ensure consistency in terms of our offer to all children, i.e. collaborative planning allows all staff to deliver creative, engaging and age-appropriate lessons while following our established themes and topics. We use agreed schemes and programmes of study, including commercially produced resources to support and enhance planning and teaching and these are adapted to our context where relevant. We make use of class sets of non-fiction books to further enhance and embed learning while demonstrating the value and importance of reading.  Our English curriculum uses high quality children’s texts to inspire and promote a love of literature and to underpin the learning of the technical requirements of good literacy outcomes. In addition, every class takes part in whole-class guided reading.  During these sessions, the ‘joy’ of reading is promoted and things such as authorial technique, vocabulary and use of imagery etc. are sign-posted in shared texts and discussed in terms of their effect on the reader.  

We make regular use of audio/visual technology including the use of ‘LYFTA’, an award-winning immersive learning platform where teachers can build or curate powerful, interactive and curriculum-aligned lessons to enhance pupils’ knowledge and understanding of different places, cultures and lifestyles.  When planning in the long, medium and short term, teachers consider diversity in a range of ways including their use of images and examples of successful sports people, artists, scientist and historical figures. 

We start each half term with ‘launch activities’, which allows teachers to share with children the learning experiences and themes that will be covered during the coming weeks.  We use these activities to remind children how their prior knowledge and skills will be used to acquire new learning and we continue to highlight and demonstrate this fact as the term continues.  We also refer to prior learning and the on-going learning journey in class assemblies and across subjects, e.g. the use of maths knowledge and skills to learn areas of Science.

In the classroom, children are facilitated in having ownership of their own learning by being expected and encouraged to make decisions.  This includes, where possible, offering alternative methods of learning presentation and/or a range of differentiated tasks that the children decide upon using self-assessment; our ethos makes it clear that a learning journey sometimes requires a step back to revisit a skill as well as the importance of practicing and embedding learning before moving on.  Children are encouraged to ask questions and contribute to learning tasks and activities as a means of further demonstrating our belief that learning is a partnership between them and our staff.  We also support and encourage independent learning wherever possible, especially with our SEND children; this is to help them see that they can achieve things by themselves even if achieving age expected outcomes is not on their current achievement pathway.  Our assessment criteria in the core subjects expects and measures application as well as acquisition of knowledge and skills.  We also expect, and teach children of all ages, to thoroughly check their learning outcomes/work before ‘handing in’ to teachers to undertake their assessment.  This enables them to play their part in the assessment process and take responsibility for submitting their best effort rather than relying on teachers to correct their mistakes for them.  

Impact

Teachers have a good understanding of the learning journey in all subjects and use this information to plan appropriate learning tasks for the children in their class.  Subject leaders are able to effectively track pupil achievement in their subject as a result of the curriculum organisation and their sound knowledge of expected lines of development and progress.  This ensures that intervention and/or support for staff is implemented. 

We see good outcomes for our children in terms of assessment data and the work they produce.  We are also seeing increased levels of confidence and understanding about their own learning and they are more able to make decisions, adapt to situations and apply their thinking.  Children apply their knowledge and skills across subjects, learn from, and teach others and contribute to lessons and school life with questions and ideas.  They have good attitudes which means they are engaged and keen to make progress, are resilient and take risks in their learning and are able to self-assess and revisit tasks to ensure understanding.

Children have an increasing knowledge of the diversity in their school community and show interest, and a growing understanding of different backgrounds and lifestyles.  Our children, but particularly our SEND children, know that they have skills and talents that are of value even if their academic achievement is not yet in line with their peers. They have ambition for themselves that are not hindered by ethnicity, cultural background or gender and they have attributes that will help prepare them for an exciting and unknown future, values that will enable them to engage with people from a range of backgrounds and aspirations for a good and productive life.

Rolling Programmes

Our 'rolling programmes' outline the content taught in each Key Stage.  They will help you to better understand which topics and subjects your children are learning during their time at school.  Please click on the link of the Key stage your child is in and you will be able to see an overview of all of their foundation subjects, broken down by half term - you may want use this as a starting point to discuss with your child. 

If you would like to find out more about our curriculum please speak to your child's Class Teacher or a member of the Management team on 01708 852367