OUR CURRICULUM
Curriculum statement At Palmerston Primary we strongly believe that all children, regardless of differences, deserve the right to access an excellent curriculum, to have the best attitudes towards learning and life, and to achieve their very best! Access - Attitude - Achievement We live and breathe our Mission statement, that: “Together We Will Succeed” Our curriculum meets the required elements as set out in the national framework, with the 4 purposes as a starting point. Please see a summary below that explains our curriculum journey, how we approach assessment and progression and how we will continue the process of review and refinement. The 4 Purposes Our curriculum helps foster ambitious capable learners by ensuring our pupils have a clear understanding of success and feel confident to challenge themselves in all aspects of their learning. We encourage risk taking and learning from mistakes. We strongly encourage our pupils to become ethically informed citizens by teaching them about current issues that affect our society and the wider world. We teach our pupils to be considerate of other opinions and viewpoints. Our pupils learn how to become healthy and confident through developing their understanding of physical and emotional health. Using learning muscles, alongside our values. We teach them about perseverance and resilience, as well as respect, kindness, wellbeing and working together as Team Palmerston. We help develop enterprising and creative contributors by providing opportunities for our pupils to be creative and to solve problems, as well as having the experience and opportunity to develop entrepreneurial awareness. |
Curriculum Development
Our school has developed a holistic approach to curriculum design. It is purpose led and links directly to our vision. We have worked with pupils, staff and parents to help shape our ideas.
Our vision aligns closely to the aspirations of the four purposes and to the mandatory requirements of teaching Welsh, English, RSE, and the cross curricular skills of literacy, numeracy and digital competence.
We understand that there is no prescribed body of knowledge but we will consider skills, and knowledge that is relevant to our context to help develop the 4 purposes. Pupils build up their skills and knowledge as they move through the school. We are working to develop this further as a cluster of Barry schools. (St Richard Gwyn cluster) to ensure our pupils have a common language of learning.
Our curriculum is taught through half termly themes, through a model of engage, develop, innovate and express. The themes cover all of the areas of learning to ensure our children receive a broad and balanced curriculum, and learn through authentic learning contexts. Lessons are taught with a focus on skills and knowledge, ensuring children can transfer their learning across different contexts. We have identified themes that ensure that our pupils are proud and knowledgeable about where they live and the wider world. This also includes opportunities to learn about the history that has shaped how we think today, including local history, black history, and diversity.
Maths is taught though a systematic programme with opportunities for challenge and support. Our expectations are high as we want all children to be numerate, to use and apply this knowledge in different contexts to further embed understanding.
We reflect the spirit of the 12 pedagogical principles in our teaching methods and understand that different activities require different approaches, such as direct and indirect teaching. We believe discrete teaching is still important and we continue to use Read Write Inc. to build knowledge in literacy, language and communication. Our pupils will then be encouraged to use and apply these skills in meaningful contexts across the curriculum.
Our methods reflect our vision to create positive attitudes and independent learners. Our pupils learn through the principles of formative assessment. Our values are a thread throughout our lessons and we encourage a positive mind-set through the use of learning muscles and culture. We encourage our pupils to learn from their mistakes.
We believe in quality not quantity and allow time in the week for our pupils to review their learning and improve their work where needed.
We are proud that our curriculum is inclusive and allows learners at whatever stage in their learning journey to understand their next steps and act upon them in a positive, specific and constructive way.
Assessment and Progression
Our school curriculum is underpinned by the mandatory 'principles of progression' which describe what it means for learners to progress and the capacities and behaviours our staff will seek to support, regardless of a learner’s stage of development.
Our teachers understand what progression means and should look like in each Area of Learning. They plan and develop the curriculum and learning experiences to enable learners to progress in the ways described.
Our pupils are developing their approaches to enquiry based learning. They discuss what information they already know at the start of a topic to establish a baseline and are encouraged to ask questions that interest them to further their understanding. A topic launch day helps give them a general overview and spark their interest!
We assess their knowledge at the start and end of topics through solo taxonomy tasks.
Topic specific vocabulary is developed as the topic progresses and these are evident on displays in class.
Formative Assessment is used as a way of identifying understanding and next steps day to day. This is done through teacher, self and peer assessment. Our teachers have used action research to develop their pedagogy in this area. We invest time teaching our pupils to become independent and aspirational learners through high quality modelling and co- constructed success criteria.
Pupils are encouraged to share their learning at the end of a topic in a variety of imaginative ways.
Opportunities to carry out independent learning to further develop their understanding and explore interests are provided as pupils work through a theme/topic.
We formally assess our pupils reading and writing and spelling skills in December, April and July. We use Salford to gain a reading age and SWIST to gain a spelling age. This information helps us identify those pupils who may benefit from extra support and we work together to identify the best approach to support progress. We use Hodder Maths Assessments to identify how individual pupils are progressing in their skills development.
We use RWI reading assessments every 6 weeks. Our Reading Leader uses this data to regroup pupils based on stage not age throughout the school. Groupings are fluid to ensure work meets the needs of our learners.
We use Welsh Government Online Assessments in Literacy and Numeracy twice in an academic year. We share this information with parents. This information is used to identify strengths and ways forward at an individual and collective level.
Review and Refine
We are continuing to work as a school cluster to refine our curriculum. We meet regularly and AoLE leads are working to develop common concepts that will lead to an end point at 16.
We look forward to the next phase of our curriculum for Wales at Palmerston.