Curriculum Statement

CLIFFORD ALL SAINTS C OF E PRIMARY SCHOOL

POLICY STATEMENT FOR CURRICULUM 

To be reviewed:               

Reviewed by: H Wood 

The children of Clifford School receive an education based on Christian principles and ideals.  As a Church School, we aim to help children become aware of, and understand, Christian beliefs and doctrines. We seek to heighten the child's spiritual awareness and to give the child the opportunity to experience, appreciate and understand the Christian life within the school community.

Overall Curriculum Philosophy

Clifford All Saints aims to give all its children access to a broad, balanced stimulating and exciting curriculum. It will provide a breadth of experiences for the children including visitors, visits and residential.  At the centre of this curriculum will be the National Curriculum for KS1 and KS2 and the EYFS curriculum. The curriculum will be relevant to all children and will deliver personalised learning for individual children at whatever stage of development they have reached. 

The curriculum is sequenced so that children can develop their knowledge and skills in a way that means they build on prior learning. 

Knowledge organisers, quizzes and opportunities for revisiting key concepts will support the children to learn more, remember more and do more. 

There will be equal access to the curriculum for all children regardless of sex, race, creed, race or disability.  By means of careful planning and assessment, the children will be assured of progression and continuity as they develop through the school and this will enable them to realise their true potential.

Reading is a high priority in school. We ensure every year group’s curriculum topics are underpinned by a high quality text that will engage and challenge the children. We are relentless in our mission for every child in school to leave us as competent, confident readers who love reading. 

High standards of work and behaviour are expected and encouraged throughout the school.  Within this structure, we aim to increase the children's confidence and self-esteem.  We accept that all children are unique and, as such, have a valuable and vital role to play in society.  The school encourages positive attitudes, which help the children to become responsible members of society.

Curriculum Design 

When designing our curriculum we looked at three main areas; Curriculum Intent, Implementation and Impact.

Intent

The curriculum is the framework for setting out the aims of a programme of education, including the knowledge and skills gained at each stage

Implementation

The way that framework is designed, planned and taught in every curriculum subject

Impact

The way we evaluate how pupils have gained knowledge and skills through the curriculum. 

Our Curriculum’s Intent

Our curriculum is exciting, engaging and promotes high standards in all areas of the curriculum, particularly in reading, writing and mathematics.

We value high quality first hand experiences and want to develop a sense of awe and wonder in our children

We want to promote preparation for and an appreciation of life in modern Britain. We want to develop their understanding of fundamental British values and equip them to be responsible, respectful citizens

We want our curriculum to prepare our children to live harmoniously in their multicultural community and in multiracial Britain with a strong understanding of the world beyond. 

Our curriculum helps children make strong, meaningful links between all subjects and enables them to transfer knowledge and skills across areas of learning. 

We want our curriculum, supported by our RSE curriculum, to help prepare our children for the future while supporting them to become emotionally literate, socially aware young people with a desire to support all members of their local community.

We want our curriculum to ignite the enthusiasm of all children so that they recognise the importance of all learning in their own lives. 

We want to make sure that every child sees themselves in our curriculum. We will endeavour to provide strong role models to every child. 

Our curriculum should provide children with the opportunity to recognise God and his work in all areas of our ever changing world. 

Our curriculum is coherently planned and sequenced so children can embed and use their knowledge and skills fluency

We want our curriculum to provide opportunities for every child to develop and discover their character, interests and talents

Our curriculum is closely linked to our school’s core values- learning, creativity and love

Our Curriculum’s Implementation

Every year group begins the planning process for their upcoming topic by creating a topic map. This shows how the curriculum will be covered and specific objectives linked to the national curriculum and sequences of learning devised by school.

Our curriculum aim is that all children: learn more, remember more and do more. 

To support the children to learn and remember key knowledge, skills and concepts, knowledge organisers for each topic are created. These will be shared with children and on display in classrooms. 

Teachers then write detailed medium term plans. These are as follows:

Learning objective

Skills

Vocabulary

Learning opportunities and resources

Our Curriculum’s Impact 

We will then look at how to further develop teaching of key concepts and evaluation and assessment of the wider curriculum.

A research focused curriculum

The curriculum has been carefully designed in order to support children so that they can ‘learn more, know more and do more’. Skills, knowledge and concepts have been identified in each curriculum area. Skills and knowledge are planned for in a systematic, sequence and are built upon as children travel through school. 

One of the main pieces of research that we are in the process of using to develop our curriculum is the work of Barak Rosenshine and in his ‘Principles of Instruction’. In this research, 10 main principles were outlined.

1. Daily review
2. Present new material using small steps.
3. Ask questions.
4. Provide models.
5. Guide Student practice.
6. Check for student understanding.
7. Obtain a high success rate.
8. Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks.
9. Independent practice.
10. Weekly and monthly review

For more information please follow this link: 

https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Rosenshine.pdf

"Cognitive load" relates to the amount of information that working memory can hold at one time. Sweller (1988) said that, since working memory has a limited capacity, instructional methods should avoid overloading it with additional activities that don't directly contribute to learning.  Our curriculum takes account of Cognitive Load Theiry through out curriculum design referenced above and through the support we give. In order to support children’s working memorties and ensure children ‘know more and remember more’, we looked at how to put the research of Baddeley and Hitch (1974) in to practice. Please see the attached document for supporting images. 

Where children are stimulated through high quality learning experiences, they begin to develop  sensory memories. With attention, activities, practice,  this becomes part of their working memory. So that this learning is converted into their long-term memory, we want to use a range of research based strategies to support this. We also actively work to support children to avoid cognitive overload.  We are in the process of implementing the work of the ‘Learning Scientists’ through the Huntington research school. These closely link to the work of Barak Rosenshine on the principles of instruction. 

For a full explanation of these techniques for teaching and learning, please visit: https://www.learningscientists.org/

Our Curriculum and the Equality Act (2010) 

The Equality Act provides a single, consolidated source of discrimination law, covering all the types of discrimination that are unlawful. At Clifford All Saints Primary School we wprl hard to ensure we consider how we treat pupils and prospective pupils, parents and carers, employees, and members of the community. Everything  we do in school must be fair, non-discriminatory and not put individuals or groups of people at a disadvantage. 

In our curriculum design we specifically work to not discriminate, harass or victimise a pupil or potential pupil in relation to:

• Admissions.
• The way it provides education for pupils.
• How it provides pupils access to any benefit, facility or service.
• Excluding a pupil or subjecting them to any other detriment.

We also take account of how to avoid:

Direct discrimination.

• Indirect discrimination.
• Failing to make reasonable adjustments for disabled pupils or staff.
• Discrimination arising from disability.
• Harassment related to a protected characteristic.
• Victimisation of someone because they have made, or helped with, a complaint about discrimination.

In our curriculum we look for  ways to actively  promote disability, gender and race equality. We also strive to have due regard for: 

• How to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation.
• Advance equality of opportunity.
• Foster good relations.

This is an ongoing process and is at the forefront of all curriculum design and adaptation. 

Clifford C of E Primary School

 EYFS Curriculum Map (Until September) 

We have adopted the EYFS framework  approach from September 2021- Development Matters 

The framework sets out the three prime areas of learning that underpin everything in the early years: 

• communication and language 

• physical development

 • personal, social and emotional development 

The four specific areas help children to strengthen and apply the prime areas: 

• literacy 

• mathematics 

• understanding the world 

• expressive arts and design

All of those areas of learning are connected together. The characteristics of effective teaching and learning weave through them all. That’s because children in the early years are becoming more powerful learners and thinkers. These characteristics develop as they learn to do new things, acquire new skills, develop socially and emotionally, and become better communicators. Development Matters sets out the pathways of children’s development in broad ages and stages. 

However, the actual learning of young children is not so neat and orderly. The main purpose of these pathways is therefore to help teachers assess each child’s level of development. Accurate assessment helps practitioners to make informed decisions about what a child needs to learn and be able to do next.

Years 1 to 6 

Children in Years 1 to 6 follow the National Curriculum. The National Curriculum provides pupils with an introduction to the essential knowledge they need to be educated citizens. It introduces pupils to the best that has been thought and said, and helps engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement. The National Curriculum provides an outline of core knowledge around which teachers can develop exciting and stimulating lessons to promote the development of pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills as part of the wider school curriculum. 

The Core subjects are: 

• English

 • Mathematics 

• Science 

The Foundation subjects are:

 • Art and Design 

• Citizenship (including personal, social, health and economic education)

 • Computing 

• Design and Technology

 • Foreign Languages (French) 

• Geography

 • History 

• Music 

• Physical Education 

• Religious Education

Clifford C of E Primary School Curriculum Map

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