The school‘s intent considers how subjects are taught and builds on what children already know and can do using well established schemes which are adapted to complement our Curriculum Teaching Sequence and meet the needs and demographic of the community that we serve. Interwoven teaching sequences for English and the curriculum were introduced by the new leadership team in the 2021 to ensure that the school’s curriculum is rich in oracy, key skills and real-life experience to support the high percentages of EAL and disadvantaged pupils. These were further refined for English in February 2023, to ensure explicit focus on building disciplinary and substantive knowledge with a focus on spoken language. Curriculum progression maps are well structured, spaced and set out in a way that builds on prior learning, ensures high expectations and supports teacher workload. The introduction of the CUSP curriculum for Geography, History and Science in the summer term of 2022 further refined the school’s intent. CUSP is underpinned by evidence, research and cognitive science. Modules are deliberately sequenced for robust progression and allow teachers to focus on the lesson. There is an emphasis on oracy and vocabulary acquisition, retention and is used to break down learning barriers and accelerate progress. A rich diet of language and vocabulary is deliberately planned for. Specific skills are discreetly taught and practised so that they become transferable. The sequenced modules activate prior learning, build on skills and deepen knowledge and understanding. Learning, vocabulary and content is cumulative; content is learned, retrieved and built upon. Alongside these well-considered plans, we firmly believe that learning can take place anywhere. Learning can take place in many forms: academically, socially, spiritually, emotionally and physically. Our long term and modular planning overviews are structured to ensure a progression of a broad range of knowledge and skills from Nursery to Year 6 following our exciting curriculum teaching sequence. Outcomes in all subjects demonstrate age-appropriate opportunities to make links between prior and new learning and apply this in different contexts. Our curriculum covers all these forms and allows all pupils to learn and develop in many ways. During the initial planning stages of a unit, staff identify opportunities for learning outside the classroom and links to core subjects. This can be an educational visit or even a visitor to school. Research shows that regular quizzing to improve metacognition and self-regulatory approaches has a greater impact on disadvantaged pupils and lower prior attainers than other pupils. Therefore, this takes place across all subjects as part of our live marking procedure. The school provides rich experiences in a coherently planned way, in the curriculum and through extra-curricular activities. We aim to provide all children with experiences that create lifelong memories and learning. Each topic (driven by history, geography or science) starts with an immersive session called a ‘Super Start’ to hook the children into the new topic. The curriculum overview is shared with parents/carers and the learning unit then ends with a celebratory ‘Fabulous Finish’ event involving parents/carers where children demonstrate their learning over the unit. In the summer term 2023, the children took ownership of planning the Fabulous Finish events to raise aspirations, confidence and to lead their own learning. Rigorous monitoring systems and procedures are in place to ensure high quality professional development which in turn is systematically evaluated for impact. The curriculum is adapted to meet the needs of children with SEND and is aimed at being as inclusive as possible so that all children feel engaged and supported to access the learning in a way that meets their individual needs. Our live marking procedure encourages children to become independent learners through a mixture of conferencing, self and peer marking. Conferencing ensures that children know what their next steps are and how they can get there. Our curriculum aims to cover the full range of objectives outlined in the National Curriculum through a sequential and progressive approach giving it relevance and to help make the learning stick.
The Curriculum is further enhanced by our Carlton Edge offer in which the pupils have 3 educational visits per year as a standard offer, raising the cultural capital of every child in school. 