Intent: Why have we designed our curriculum this way?
At Kenton Primary we value all children as unique learners; it is our mission to nurture curiosity and confidence in all our children, equipping them with the character and knowledge to open doors to their future success. We offer a broad, balanced, and ambitious curriculum that encourages pupils to delve deeper into their learning each year as their skills grow progressively. It also responds to our assessment data and pupils’ individual learning needs to provide personalised learning.
By the time they leave our schools our aim is for all the children to:
- Be enthusiastic readers.
- Have a comprehensive maths knowledge base, which they can apply to problem-solve.
- Express themselves eloquently, verbally and in their writing for a variety of audiences.
- Have the self-confidence to know that they are successful learners and to know how to learn effectively.
- To have a broad knowledge, experience, and skills base of the wider curriculum.
- Have experiences and cultural capital which make them active citizens in our rapidly changing world.
Our curriculum provides opportunities for children to develop as independent, confident and successful learners, with high aspirations, who know how to make a positive contribution to their community and the wider society. It celebrates the diversity and utilises the skills, knowledge and cultural wealth of the community while supporting the children’s spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development, ensuring that children are well prepared for life in modern Britain. Our curriculum also enables us to build strong relationships, celebrate diversity, encourage respect, and build a sense of community. It provides and acknowledges success for all children, in all aspects of their development and it recognises, encourages, and celebrates all types of talent.
Kenton Primary School is a smaller than average primary school in rural village setting in Devon and is in the heart of community life. The children come from a range of socio- economic backgrounds and have a wide range of out-of-school experiences. We adapt and tailor the curriculum so that all our children achieve well, encompassing children from the broadest ranges of abilities and experiences.
Implementation: how do we carry it out?
We use the national curriculum as a starting point to plan out engaging learning opportunities, which we developed using staff and pupil voice as well as consultation with subject specific associations and bearing in mind the geographical and historical context of our locality. We use the benefits of being in a rural setting and also compensate for the drawbacks of this. We develop children prepared to be active citizens for both the UK and of the World, now and in the future.
We provide first hand learning experiences that allow children to develop interpersonal skills and build resilience. Overarching themes all include a ‘hook’ to immerse pupils in their topic and we provide opportunities to share their learning with parents and other pupils to bring their learning to life.
We have developed a rich and varied menu of enrichment opportunities to make learning engaging, to provide memorable experiences and recognise individuality, such as inviting in authors, artists etc. and through our trips to deepen learning.
Using the outdoors as a way of learning is fundamental to our teaching and learning which we strive to make as practical as possible. Outdoor learning acts both as a means of motivation and as a means of embedding knowledge about and care for the environment, both locally, nationally, and globally. This is done through putting the use of the environment at the centre of our planning, including Forest School slots of all children planned in throughout the school year.
At the heart of our curriculum are literacy, maths and science and we truly value our wider curriculum, which gives all pupils a chance to flourish in a range of experiences.
At Kenton Primary School reading is a top priority. Our intent is that every child will become a reader in our school. The teaching and learning of reading is at the heart of everything the children do and is a golden thread within our curriculum. Whether reading for pleasure or across the curriculum, children learn to decode, comprehend, summarise, infer and predict texts, giving them access to the world of information around them. Reading will enable learning in all other areas of our curriculum, and vice versa. All children will leave our school with a love of reading, and the necessary skills to help them to flourish in their secondary education and in life. We work to develop confident, fluent readers who enjoy a variety of literature and who can critically evaluate a range of texts, both fiction and non-fiction as they prepare for transition into Key Stage 3.
We place a strong emphasis on fostering a love for writing, enabling students to become confident and proficient writers across a range of genres. The intent is to provide a rich and stimulating learning environment that inspires children to develop their creativity, express themselves articulately, and communicate effectively through the written word. The school aims to equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge to become successful writers, enabling them to thrive academically and in their future careers. We carefully craft cross-curricular writing opportunities to ensure that children have every opportunity to write for a variety of audiences and purposes. Our curriculum offers a rigorous and progressive teaching of Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar for each Year group so the that children have the skills they need to become fluent and able writers. Our children take pride in their presentation and are discreetly taught a legible cursive handwriting style as they move through the school.
We want the children at Kenton Primary School to have a genuine curiosity in the world around them and have developed the skills to explore those things. We want them to have developed skills around observation and measurements, recording data and presenting findings. We want them to test out predictions and discover first hand whether they match their results and what this tells them. The skills of working scientifically sit alongside a rich body of knowledge about the world around them. The core skills of Biology, Chemistry and Physics have been stitched together cohesively as children progress through the school.
Scientific enquiry skills are embedded in each topic the children study and these topics are revisited and developed throughout their time at school. Topics, such as plants, are taught in Key Stage One and studied again in further detail within Key Stage Two. This is mapped on our curriculum progression document. This model allows children to build upon their prior knowledge and increases their enthusiasm for the topics whilst embedding this procedural knowledge into the long-term memory. We ensure key knowledge is retained through retrieval tasks at the start of each Science lesson. They are immersed in scientific vocabulary, which aids children’s knowledge and understanding not only of the topic they are studying, but of the world around them.
Science in our school is about developing children’s ideas and ways of working that enable them to make sense of the world in which they live through investigation, as well as using and applying process skills. The staff at Kenton Primary School ensure that all children are exposed to high quality teaching and learning experiences, which allow children to explore their outdoor environment through designated forest school sessions and use of our local environment (Kenton playing fields).
Our school values, PSHE lessons and assemblies promote positive attitudes which reflect the values and skills needed for future learning and success. We develop children’s understanding of British Values and the Protected Characteristics through the ‘Votes for Schools’ programme which supports debate around weekly current affairs topics.
Teamwork and responsibility are an essential part of our curriculum, and we enable children to take on key roles, becoming involved in the community, through celebration of local traditions, by learning new skills and enabling them to take an active part in events throughout the year. Pupil Leadership is at the centre of our school, and we encourage all children to take an active role in school life.
We adapt the curriculum, the support provided and the challenge of skill application to a range of situations for children with SEND and for the most able. We take care to note that the abilities of children may differ across subject and according to the skill being taught, so ensure that we fine tune what is provided according to individual need.
Subject leaders play an important part in the success of the curriculum by leading a termly programme of monitoring, evaluation, and review, embedded in our School Improvement Plan, and the celebration of good practice contributes to the ongoing commitment to evolve and improve further. All subject leaders are given training and the opportunity to keep developing their own subject knowledge, skills and understanding, so they can support curriculum development and their colleagues throughout the school.
Training for teachers across all subjects forms a fundamental part of this. The focus of this is to ensure that children experience high quality learning in all aspects of the curriculum.
Impact
The positive impact of our curriculum is seen through pupils’ engagement in their learning and the pride that they take in their work. It is also shown through teacher assessment of data in core subjects and progression of skills in foundation subjects. Pupil voice is highly valued, and we regularly take feedback from our school council and other groups of children on our curriculum and use this as a measure of success and to make changes to keep improving where needed. We quality assure our teaching and learning to measure impact through learning walks, book looks and further pupil voice – a termly programme embedded in our School Improvement Plan, Pupils are secondary school ready by the time that they leave Year 6 as can be seen by the outcomes for both schools’ Year 6 assessments, both in attainment and progress. There are areas that we need to focus on for further development in order to improve this further, but our own self-evaluation identifies these, and they form a significant part of our School Improvement Plan.
The innovative practice across the school provides a strong foundation and opportunities for children to collaborate and develop social skills both indoors and out. This curriculum design ensures that the needs of individual and small groups of children can be met within the environment of high quality first wave teaching, supported by targeted, proven interventions where appropriate. In this way it can be seen to impact in a very positive way on children’s outcomes.
Enjoyment of the curriculum promotes achievement, confidence and good behaviour. Children feel safe to try new things. High quality visits and visitors to the school enhance the curriculum and provide opportunities for writing for a purpose.
The development of oracy and debate across the curriculum enables children to understand how others use language and how they can use it to the best effect themselves. This enables them to be effective and confident communicators and prepares them for their adult lives.
Children have opportunities to share their learning with each other, their parents and carers and other learners through school-based and external exhibitions, performances, competitions, and events involving other schools. Developing their independence and motivation as learners and their sense of responsibility as future citizens is at the heart of all our teaching and learning.
Children leave Kenton Primary School with a sense of belonging and are proud that they have developed the confidence and skills needed to be learners for life, supported by our Golden Threads.
