Curriculum
Our Curriculum
Intent
Our curriculum is based on the National Curriculum but focuses on teaching children the knowledge and skills they need to learn more and remember more. Our pupils are offered a full, un-narrowed curriculum with a wide range of experiences to extend their understanding of themselves and the world in which they live - developing skills, attitudes and values that prepare them for the next stage of learning (Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2 or transition to Secondary) and enabling them to be successful in the community. It is also our intent to help build the cultural capital of our pupils by providing enrichment experiences through educational visits or through workshops and bringing experts into school.
Implementation
We believe that effective learning takes place when there is considerable emphasis on active involvement - where pupils work both imaginatively and expressively and have opportunities to explain and clarify thinking. We make meaningful connections across subjects and sequence learning to ensure that pupils build on prior learning to enable them to make progress from their individual starting points.
At Leamore, we expect everyone to develop and show a sense of responsibility and self-discipline whether alone, together, at work or at play, and support policies on equal opportunities. We actively promote British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and the inclusion of those with different faiths and beliefs to prepare our pupils for life in modern day Britain. We also provide opportunities for our pupils to learn about the contribution of Britons to innovation, excellence and changes in the world.
Impact
Our carefully-designed approach allows our leaders to effectively measure the impact that their subject is having in terms of pupil voice, assessment data and staff voice. These holistics inform subject action plans that in turn inform the Curriculum Action Plan to ensure that Leamore provides an ever-improving offer for its pupils and for the whole school community.
This policy makes reference to The New National Curriculum 2014. It is also linked to our Equality, Gifted and Talented, Home Learning, SEND, SMSC, British Values and Teaching and Learning policies.
Aims
- That all pupils are provided with outstanding learning experiences that lead to consistently outstanding levels of pupil achievement.
- From the start, children are taught in differentiated groups to allow further consolidation for some, and for greater speed and breadth of delivery at the upper end of attainment.
- That all teachers and other professionals possess expert levels of knowledge in the subjects they teach.
- That all teachers and other professionals are “life-long learners”, committed to an ongoing development of their own knowledge and skills to optimise the pupils’ learning experiences.
- That a positive, caring attitude, where achievements at all levels are acknowledged and valued, is prevalent throughout the school.
- That all pupils from the earliest opportunity, are encouraged to develop independence, self-discipline, responsibility and the ability to build resilience.
By clicking the link below, you will be able to view our Curriculum topic maps which will outline, in brief, what will be covered in each topic for each year group.
However, if you require more detailed information, please click the link below to go to the National Curriculum which outlines what schools MUST teach:
National Curriculum
Reading and Phonics
Here at Leamore, we feel being able to read is paramount. Not only does it allow our children to learn independently, it provides a doorway into unknown realms, the ability to experience situations and scenarios they may never come across in their own lives and provides exposure to new, exciting vocabulary and language structures.
Phonics
At Leamore Primary School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.
As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Leamore Primary School, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.
Reading
To help children get the most from reading, our school uses the Big Reading scheme.
This scheme uses mini missions and a Big Reading session to help teach all of the skills involved in reading.
The scheme also introduces the key skills through using fun, relatable characters such as Rex Retriever, Expi Explorer, Ansa Analyser, Dood Detective.
In addition to this, so that our children get opportunities to use their phonics learning to build reading skills, we use the Oxford Reading Tree and Big Cat reading books to support reading and phonics progression.
Writing
Our curriculum for writing is built on the expectations outlined in the National Curriculum. In the past, we have tried several readily available schemes to teach writing at Leamore including Hamilton Trust, Talk 4 Writing and others however we believe that none of these were the vehicle we needed to help our children become confident, fluent and successful writers. Instead, we developed our own writing policy based on the best of strategies out there to allows our teachers to prepare units of writing that are specifically designed for our pupils' needs.
To this end, it is our intent that the pupils of Leamore Primary school will be confident independent writers who, through building on a robust writing strategy that ensures progression, can successfully use written communication to convey the ideas they wish to communicate to fulfil a purpose.
In order to better allow staff to create meaningful writing that stretches across the curriculum, flexibility in the genres of writing, skills to be delivered and the timing of writing units has been designed to be flexible. In flexible times, pupils will be working on Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar aspects that develop their subject knowledge of writing and opportunities to use this in extended independent pieces will be provided. When working on a specific genre unit, the policy here helps to understand our approach:
Maths
Mastery in Mathematics at Leamore Primary School 2022/23
All pupils are encouraged by the belief that by working hard at maths they can succeed.
Pupils are taught through whole-class interactive teaching, where the focus is on all pupils working together on the same lesson content at the same time. This ensures that all can master concepts before moving to the next part of the curriculum sequence, allowing no pupil to be left behind.
If a pupil fails to grasp a concept or procedure, this is identified quickly and early intervention ensures the pupil is ready to move forward with the whole class in the next lesson
Lesson design identifies the new mathematics that is to be taught, the key points, the difficult points and a carefully sequenced journey through the learning. In a typical lesson the teacher leads back and forth interaction, including questioning, short tasks, explanation, demonstration, and discussion.
Procedural fluency and conceptual understanding are developed in tandem because each supports the development of the other.
It is recognised that practice is a vital part of learning, but the practice used is intelligent practice that both reinforces pupils’ procedural fluency and develops their conceptual understanding.
Significant time is spent developing deep knowledge of the key ideas that are needed to underpin future learning. The structure and connections within the mathematics are emphasised, so that pupils develop deep learning that can be sustained.
Key facts such as multiplication tables and addition facts within 10 are learnt to automaticity to avoid cognitive overload in the working memory and enable pupils to focus on new concepts.
Mastery Approach at Leamore Primary
Since September 2022, we have begun to introduce a mastery approach to our teaching and learning in mathematics at Leamore Primary School. The mastery-learning model means spending greater time going into depth when learning a concept or procedure and not racing through the curriculum.
Rushing through content can lead to some children having large gaps in subject knowledge because the concept they had just learnt was either too big or learnt too quickly. A mastery approach means that we are taking learning at a steadier and deeper pace, trying to ensure that children are not left behind; as well as providing deeper and richer experiences for children who are above the national expectation for their age. We are focussing on all children achieving what is expected of their age group and not going beyond this.
Evidence shows that children need to be taught a concept, learn to apply it in a range of situations and then be creative with it, in order to really understand it. Simply going beyond their age group does not guarantee they understand something, it just means they can apply a method/algorithm correctly. Our children are being taught content from the year group they are in, they are spending time becoming true masters of the relevant content, applying it and embedding their new knowledge and skills in multiple ways.
We are developing this approach through the Power Maths resources. Lessons follow a particular format, which include the following elements:
Discover: Every lesson starts with a Discover task to get children to solve a problem that aims to generate curiosity. During the Discover section, children may use manipulatives to help them understand the maths and explain their method.
Share: The next stage encourages children to Share the methods they have tried to solve the problem in Discover.
Think Together: We only learn when we are thinking! In this section Power Maths takes the approach “I do, we do, you do”, as children apply the knowledge they have just learned in a series of problems that continue to encourage thinking throughout.
Practice: Children are then ready for some independent Practice.
Reflect: The final Reflect question helps the children evaluate whether they have understood the key concept and small step that they have been trying to master in the lesson.