INTENT

Our curriculum is designed to ensure all pupils leave Vale School at the end of Year 6 as:

 

This is achieved by Valuing All Learners Equally.

KNOWLEDGE

We recognise the importance of knowledge acquisition as a key driver in raising attainment for all pupils, especially pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.  Therefore, we have designed a curriculum that identifies the knowledge pupils should acquire in each year, whilst also recognising the importance of developing pupils’ skills, understanding and attitudes.  E.D. Hirsh said:

“Breadth of knowledge is the single factor within human control that contributes most to academic achievement and general cognitive competence.  Breadth of knowledge is a far greater factor in achievement than socioeconomic status.  Imparting broad knowledge to all children is the single most effective way to narrow the gap between demographic groups through schooling.”

^{E.D. Hirsh}

Our intention is that by enabling pupils to become successful learners (acquiring the knowledge, skills, vocabulary and understanding required), they will in turn become confident individuals (who have a positive personal identity), resulting in them becoming responsible citizens.

HOLISTIC

At Vale School we recognise that everything we do, say and model affects our pupils and therefore forms part of our holistic curriculum.  At the core of our curriculum is the desire to see all pupils become successful learners, confident individuals and responsible citizens, as well as young people who demonstrate in thought, word and deed our values.

The National Curriculum is used as the foundation for the teaching of subjects, but we recognise that other opportunities children experience have a significant impact on their development.  Therefore, we seek to provide varied experiences, activities and events to supplement and enhance the more traditional subjects studied at school.  Here are a few examples:

We seek to use our local environment and history as a stimulus for learning, including our close proximity to the South Downs National Park, an ancient hill fort, windmill, beach, places of worship and our local shopping precinct.

Reading

The teaching of reading, resulting in pupils becoming confident readers who enjoy a wide range of texts is a priority throughout the school.  The children’s journey to become fluent, proficient readers starts in our Early Years and Year 1 classes, where we use the Read Write Inc. programme of phonics teaching. We heavily invest resources and adults into these initial years at school to ensure all pupils, no matter their starting point, make rapid progress in becoming independent readers. Pupils then progress to more challenging texts and teachers use a wide range of teaching strategies to challenge all pupils to make progress, whilst retaining an enjoyment and love of books. Teachers use whole class texts (alongside the children’s individual reading) as the basis for much of their teaching to ensure all pupils are exposed to good quality texts and vocabulary. We recognise the importance of developing good reading habits at home and encourage parents to take an active role in helping their child develop the knowledge and skills to become a competent reader.

As a school we recognise that the skill of reading is essential for children to access the wider curriculum and to prepare them for secondary education.  Therefore, in all year groups, Reading and the teaching of reading remains a priority across all subjects. We provide children and parents with a list of 100 recommended books across 2 years (Key Stage 1, Lower Key Stage 2, Upper Key Stage 2) and encourage the children to read from this list as it guarantees quality, progression and a wide range of genres.

More details about our Reading curriculum along with our whole English Curriculum, please click here.

Implementation

As a school we have identified, for each curriculum subject, the key concepts, knowledge, skills and vocabulary we expect all pupils to learn and understand.  Pupils' prior learning is also listed in each unit plan to ensure teachers know what has been taught in previous years and how the new learning builds and links to this previous work. Understanding pupils’ possible misconceptions about the theme being studied is also an important consideration that teachers must make to ensure, where at all possible, misconceptions are not allowed to form in a child’s grasp of a concept, knowledge, understanding or skill.

To ensure progression, teachers have made sure there is continuity, progression and challenge in each unit plan, with knowledge, skills, and understanding developing year-on-year.

We recognise the importance of revisiting concepts and knowledge regularly and use a wide range of strategies to accomplish this:

• Quizzes – repeated retrieval improves long-term retention. In 2013, five cognitive scientists [Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan & Willingham] collated hundreds of studies looking at memory retention and showed that quizzing (practice testing) is the most successful tool for improving retention and learning. 

• Low-stakes testing – Retrieval practice has many benefits for memory and motivation. It:
  • Improves long-term retention
  • Identifies gaps in knowledge
  • Causes pupils to learn more from the next unit of work
  • Produces better organisation of knowledge
  • Improves transfer of knowledge to new concepts
  • Provides feedback to teachers
  • Encourages pupils to study

• Vocabulary – identifying, using and in many cases, pre-teaching key vocabulary supports understanding. Word-poor pupils are at a significant disadvantage to pupils who are word-rich.  Therefore, we select class texts that provide pupils with more complex and challenging content to widen their vocabulary knowledge. Subject specific vocabulary is used by teachers and pupils in all lessons.

• Reading – Reading quality texts is key in improving vocabulary learning. We provide pupils and parents with a list of 100 books that we encourage them to read over a 2 year period (KS1, Years 3 & 4, and Years 5 & 6). These books offer a range of genres, styles and topics, but are all selected for the impact they will have on increasing a child’s knowledge of literature and to aid them on the journey of becoming word-rich.

• Knowledge organisers – These are single A4 sheets that contain the key knowledge, vocabulary etc. that pupils need to acquire to be a successful learner in a particular unit of work. Year groups build on previous organisers to further extend children’s grasp of a subject.

• Re-visiting themes - units within a key stage are revisited to secure understanding and to embed learning.

National Curriculum

As a school, we follow the National Curriculum.  The requirements for each subject within each key stage are grouped together, where applicable, under a Theme heading.  This theme is often underpinned by a core text and subjects that naturally link together are taught within the theme.  Other subjects, that don’t easily fit the theme, are taught discretely.

Teaching

We believe that for young children to thrive at school, they need to develop a positive, strong relationship with their class teacher. Therefore, in all year groups the class teacher teaches their class for the majority of the time (including English and maths).  As pupils progress through the school, year teams play to their strengths so that all 3 classes are taught by one teacher for a subject they specialise in e.g. Spanish.  Subject specialists are used to ensure high quality provision is offered to all in the following subjects:  PE, art, food-technology and music.

When teaching phonics we group the children according to their ability to ensure the texts they are reading are decodable by the child and that they are challenged appropriately whilst also having success. Children also have a wide range of other texts to select from to encourage a love of reading.  

 In maths all classes (except Year 6) are taught in mixed ability classes. In Year 6 we set the 90 children across 4 ability sets. (Due to the impact of COVID we have introduced smaller group teaching in Years 4 & 5 for 2021/22.  This is linked to our assessment of the children's needs).

During the year and across subjects, teachers will make decisions to ability group pupils for a limited time for a specific activity, lesson or intervention, but our priority is to keep the class together as much as possible across all lessons.

Our teaching of the curriculum is based on 6 pedagogical principles: challenge, explanation, modelling, deliberate practice, questioning, feedback. These principles are taken from “Making Every Primary Lesson Count”, written by Jo Payne and Mel Scott, a previous and current teacher at Vale School.

Challenge

• Concise learning objectives, success criteria and feedback are used to provide challenge for all 
• Children are expected to develop their knowledge and skills during lessons
• Formal, subject specific, academic language is modelled by teachers and expected from children
• The expectation is high for all children
• Appropriate support and scaffolding are in place to enable all children to achieve expected outcomes
• Examples of excellence are shared, discussed and deconstructed with the class
• A growth mindset will be developed in all children
• Teachers' subject knowledge is essential
• Children are encouraged to visit the ‘struggle zone’

          

Explanation

• Children’s prior knowledge is used to ‘hook into’ new knowledge
• Explanations:
  • focus on key learning points, success criteria and subject specific knowledge
  • are made concrete and credible (demonstration, visual images/video, practical) using stories and emotion where applicable
  • generate curiosity and identify children’s gaps in learning
  • are clear and concise.
  • are used to identify and address common misconceptions

Modelling

• All learning is carefully modelled

• Examples of work are shared and deconstructed. “This is great because….” “This needs improving because…”
• Children are introduced to subject specific vocabulary                           
• High quality language is used when modelling
• Modelling is scaffolded to maximise the learning for all children
• Questioning is used to check understanding
• A three-step progression is used when modelling:

Deliberate Practice                                

• Practice makes permanent
• Children are given time to practise new knowledge and skills
• The teacher identifies mistakes, intervenes when necessary and so ensures that practice is perfect
• Mistakes are used as a key aspect of learning
• Scaffolding and support are removed when appropriate
• Key skills and knowledge are practised regularly to improve retention
• Homework, IT, knowledge organisers and pop quizzes are used to support deliberate practice.

To support our view that deliberate practice is important, every week all children in KS1 & 2 receive a deliberate practice and computing session, led by a designated member of staff.  During this time, class teachers are released to work with individuals and small groups to revisit previous learning or deal with identified misconceptions.

Questioning   

• Questioning both deepens and develops thinking and checks for common misconceptions
• The teacher develops children’s responses by asking more complex follow-up questions
• Insufficient responses are expanded by further questioning
• Children answer in full sentences when appropriate
• Children respond to each other’s contributions in lessons
• Children ask questions, and seek clarification if they are unsure
• The reward for right answers is deeper questioning
• We have a “no opt out” policy. If a child doesn’t know:
  • Ask another child, then return to the original child to repeat the answer.
  • Give a couple of options from which they can choose
  • Give them the answer and ask them to explain why it is correct
• Give children time to think before they answer.
• Use talk partners to think-pair-share
• Cold call, so you can target specific children and show you want to hear what they have to say.
• Use a variety of ways to randomly select pupils ( no-hands approach; lolly sticks)
• Closed and open questions are used to elicit knowledge and deepen understanding.

Feedback                                 

Feedback is:                               

• Kind
• Specific
• Encouraging
• Helpful
• Challenging

• Children give feedback to their peers and teachers
• Feedback is timed right so that children have enough ‘struggle time’ before being supported
• Children know what they have to do to achieve
• Children understand and reflect on the feedback given by the teacher.  They respond when appropriate.
• Teaching is flexible, based on the feedback from the performance of children
• Self-assessment strategies such as proof-reading, editing and redrafting are used to aid children’s thinking and learning
• Feedback is:
  • effective when it is timely, (not too late after the task), frequent and acted on (not ignored).
  • used to identify the ‘learning gaps’ of individuals.
  • specific and clearly focused on learning.
  • focused on what children are getting right – so they can continue to do so.
  • not an add on. It is an ongoing and essential part of excellent pedagogy, used to deepen learning and improve teaching.
• Feedback will be different for different subjects.
• Feedback should encourage pupils to aspire to excellence.
• Feedback should be high impact but manageable and sustainable for staff.

Planning

Planning starts at the whole school level.  Our Whole School Curriculum Document shows, by subject, the objectives taught in each year group.  Our curriculum overview shows how these objectives are taught in each year group across each half term.

Unit plans are then used to ensure all teachers deliver the core content, building on children’s prior knowledge.  These plans include:

• National Curriculum requirements (learning objectives)
• Prior knowledge – what has been studied in previous years
• Key concepts, vocabulary and skills – using common language across the school.
• Content of lessons
• How learning is going to be checked
• Knowledge organiser – to assist both teachers and pupils in identifying the key knowledge etc. to be taught.

CORE SUBJECTS

Quality Assurance

Leaders review the implementation of our curriculum through a wide range of monitoring activities.  These include:

• Lesson observations

• Monitoring planning

• Looking at children’s work

• Interviews with pupils

• Review meetings with Year Leaders

• Governor visits

• Reports to governing body

Continuing Professional Development

To ensure all teachers are developing their subject knowledge, and understanding of pedagogy, they receive dedicated continuing professional development time to explore a particular aspect of their own practice.  This will include:

• Reading educational research and publications

• Observing other teachers

• Coaching sessions with SLT

• Videoing their own teaching

• Reflecting on their practice

• Presenting findings to the teaching team

Progression

To ensure progression in each year group and subject, our Unit Plans include prior learning and clear expectations about skills, vocabulary and knowledge to be acquired by pupils.  To ensure pupils make appropriate progress, examples of work that meet the expected standard are used to support teachers’ judgments and assessments.

Impact

Assessment Information

Forms of Assessment

Nationally standardised summative assessment

Non academic curriculum impact on pupils