Our Curriculum

Our children’s needs, interests, and aspirations, as well as the community they live in, are at the heart of our curriculum decisions. We challenge the children to be the best they can be whilst considering the legal requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum and the Primary National Curriculum.

Our curriculum recognises each child as a unique individual who should have access to quality first teaching and learning.

The curriculum is well sequenced and ignites children’s interest through exciting, enriching, engaging and inspiring opportunities and experiences to learn new skills, embed existing ones.

Our curriculum ensures our children acquire and build knowledge over time and provides our children with opportunities to show their understanding. These opportunities enable our children to become independent, resilient and successful learners who are able to explore, discover and then reflect on their learning.

At Christleton Primary School our curriculum is implemented with our curriculum intent at the heart of all we do.

`Learning can be defined as an alteration in long-term memory. If nothing has altered in long-term memory, nothing has been learned. In order to develop understanding, pupils connect new knowledge with existing knowledge.’ (Ofsted)

Our curriculum design is based on evidence from principles of learning, on-going assessment and organisation and cognitive research.

The main principles underpinning our curriculum are;

• Our curriculum is aspirational in order to ensure the highest of outcomes for all pupils including disadvantaged and/or those with SEND, in order to powerfully address social disadvantage.
• Children will explore big ideas in greater depth, building on foundations through a deliberately sequenced curriculum which is ambitious and challenging.
• We will deliver subject specific knowledge, making purposeful links where appropriate and develop the use of transferable skills across the curriculum.
• Opportunities to read and the application of reading skills are embedded across the curriculum. The development of vocabulary and oracy will accelerate progress and narrow gaps.
• Our curriculum is organised so that it builds on prior knowledge and skills so that learning is reiterative and alters long term memory.
• Assessment is designed thoughtfully to shape future learning and usually takes place within the lesson. Teachers use this to support pupils to embed and use knowledge fluently and deepen their understanding.

Our curriculum is knowledge-rich and skills are acquired alongside core content in order that the fluent application of knowledge develops learners’ skills across a range of subjects. An importance is placed upon foundational knowledge, concepts and core skills so that sufficient knowledge is established, ready for the next stage of learning.

The curriculum is organised by subject domain with natural links between core content established where appropriate. This allows children to study the pure essence of each subject and develop as historians, musicians and the like.

Progression of knowledge and skills documents outline the core content to be covered for each subject. They provide clarity of the `sticky’ knowledge for each year group. These documents also contain the key vocabulary to be taught and provide relevant texts that will support each area.

Our medium term planning coherently sequences lessons to ensure the core content is covered. They provide a natural progression for pupils to continually layer their understanding and build upon prior learning. Retrieval practice is a key component of each lesson that allows pupils to revisit and revise prior content.

The use of Knowledge Organisers provide transparency within the curriculum, an overview of pre-teach content and also a means of tracking knowledge, skills and understanding of concepts which are regularly re-visited in the form of a variety of retrieval exercises.  This regular revisiting enables knowledge to be committed to long-term memory. 

Introduction of the Context for Learning

A question is used to spark interest.

Pre-planning.

Describe, list, outline, find, label, draw, match.

Pre-planning questions are used to shape how learning takes place, drawing objectives from the national curriculum and key skills from our skills progression documents.

Exploration of the Context for learning

Sequence, classify, compare and contrast, explain (cause and effect), analyse, organise, distinguish, question, relate, apply, link prior learning.

The planned sequence of learning is followed to provide the children with the knowledge and skills required. Additions may be made in response to events, further questions, assessments or responding to the interests of the children.

Reflection on the Context for Learning

Generalise, predict, evaluate, reflect, hypothesise, theorise, create, prove, justify, argue, compose, design, construct, perform.