Intent

Central to our vision and values is the development of an innovative, rich and engaging curriculum that enables all of our pupils to succeed. Opportunities are planned to enrich the curriculum in all year groups to capture the hearts and minds of our pupils. Active learning is fundamental to instilling a love of learning that is life long.

We believe that learning should be memorable; that children are able to make connections across areas of their learning and with the wider world and that the experiences children have in school empower them to become clear and independent thinkers, decision makers and well-rounded future citizens.

Our curriculum intent is inextricably intertwined with our school aims to ensure that children: 

• Become independent, self-motivated and confident individuals;
• Develop lively, enquiring, imaginative and creative minds;
• Be healthy and fit and understand how to maintain a healthy lifestyle;
• Embrace creativity;
• Develop the essential tools for life-long learning;
• Develop the ability to collaborate effectively within a working team; in school and in the wider community in which they live;
• Develop a reasoned set of attitudes, values and beliefs;
• Develop understanding of the world in which they live and of the independence of individuals, groups, nations and the environment;
• Experience awe and wonder through their learning;
• Appreciate themselves and each other as unique individuals;
• Become safe, tolerant and respectful active citizens;
• Build upon their strengths; empowered with the confidence to “fly”.

Implementation

At Appleby Primary School our curriculum builds in carefully considered incremental steps of progression through the Early Years, Key Stage One and Key Stage Two to ensure that knowledge is developed effectively and retained. 

Mathematics and English are taught daily throughout the school. Other curriculum subjects are taught as blocked units across each term and over each academic year. Subject leaders have carefully planned sequences of learning to ensure that knowledge and skills are built and secured over time. As learning progresses within each subject, teachers make active links to prior knowledge to help pupils to make important connections and develop children's understanding and ability to apply their knowledge. Subject leaders have identified core concepts which are integral to subject disciplines. These form the basis for progression which can be tracked through our concept maps for each subject. 

To ensure clear, coherent strategic curriculum progression, we have set out our curriculum with each subject having:

• Intent, Implementation and Impact Statements
• A long term plan mapping coverage of the national curriculum
• Unit plans which demonstrate how curriculum coverage builds alongside progression in core concepts
• Vertical Concept Maps

These can all be accessed on our website.

Teaching across the entire curriculum is founded on the latest cognitive science and best practice to ensure that pupils' learning is developed and secured incrementally. Regular quizzes and reviews help children to secure their learning and enable teachers to respond in their teaching to ensure that all children make good progress. Scaffolding techniques support pupils to access their learning and develop their depth of understanding. Teachers strive to manage children's cognitive load to focus their attention when learning knew information whilst open-ended tasks enable children to develop and deepen their knowledge and communicate their understanding.

Fundamental to learning is the development of vocabulary. Subject leaders have identified core subject vocabulary which is regularly reinforced and secured as part of all lessons. 

Impact

At Appleby Primary School we have developed a ’Monitoring and Evaluating Toolkit’ to ensure we are consistent in our approach to monitoring the impact of our curriculum delivery. Within this toolkit, there are various layers of monitoring and evaluating our curriculum delivery.

Pupil Voice

We are committed to actively and proactively listening to our pupils’ thoughts, feelings and opinions in order to review and improve the learning experiences within our school.

Staff Voice

Staff are encouraged to take part in subject audits, questionnaires, coaching sessions and regular professional dialogue and meetings to share their ideas and evaluations. This leads to action plans taking place in order to adapt and improve our vision.

Learning Walks

All subject leaders take part in planned learning walks to work alongside teachers to support the delivery of their subject. From these visits, future training, resourcing or adaptions to the curriculum can be identified and met. Leaders also take part in learning walks to monitor the learning ethos and delivery. All such findings are fed into our self evaluation and school improvement planning.

Book Scrutiny

Book audits help to establish the quality and detail of the teaching and learning in specific subjects over time. These are sometimes done collectively as a staff or alone as a subject lead. Likewise the children are sometimes included in this process too, depending on the focus of the monitoring exercise. Formative and summative assessments are used to monitor pupil progress and to allow appropriate intervention at a class or individual level, where necessary.

Governor Challenge

Governors/staff meetings are planned at regular intervals throughout the year to monitor specific subject areas and other aspects of the curriculum. Monitoring grids have been devised to support all governors in this process.

Parent Views

Our parents are kept informed about our curriculum via regular school newsletters. The launch of the new curriculum newsletter aims to share specific details about teaching and learning within our school. Parents are sometimes asked to complete online questionnaires when we review aspects of our curriculum and their ideas and hopes for their child/ children are also considered.