Our Curriculum intention

At Peel Common Junior school, we believe that every child should have equal access to a broad and balanced curriculum and experience high quality teaching with appropriate levels of challenge and support. The school wide ethos and classroom culture of inclusivity, respect, strong relationships and resilience is becoming embedded and is starting to instill a passion for learning in all children.

Our school values underpin our aims for the curriculum:

• Show kindness and be caring
• Be part of the school community
• Explore and discover the world around us
• Have confidence in ourselves
• Show respect for everyone and everything.

Through our curriculum, we aim to:

• Enable all children to appreciate what it means to be a member of a modern, diverse community and to learn what it means to be a global citizen.
• Offer memorable experiences which are woven through the curriculum and occur both inside and outside the classroom, both inside and outside of the school environment.
• Provide strong foundations in Reading, Writing, Spoken language and Maths skills so that all children are enabled to access the wider curriculum and build on these skills so they may be successful in future life.
• Develop their own resilience in order to manage success but also when things go wrong.
• Enable children to make links to their prior knowledge and understanding so they can grow in confidence and have a more positive school experience.

Implementation

Our curriculum is created using the National Curriculum 2014 document and aims to provide a rich, broad and balanced curriculum for all children, taking note of the contextual needs of the children at Peel Common Junior school.

Our children are taught key skills and knowledge through a range of units which aim to build upon what came before (prior knowledge) and develop what is to come after. The use of retrieval questions enables the children to fix the position of this unit and to retrieve previous taught skills and use them within the current unit. The progression of skills and understanding is closely tracked by the subject leaders and evaluations are made following each unit to help the subject leader to review the pitch and appropriateness of each planned unit.

Our curriculum is split into 2 cycles, A and B with subject leaders looking for opportunities to blend the learning across the two cycles. For example, in Geography, the Islands units in Cycle B for Year 3 and 4 looks at Tenerife which is also part of the Volcanoes unit in Cycle A for Year 3 and 4.

Subject leaders have worked with HIAS inspectors and subject leaders in other local schools to ensure that their subject is current and is created to meet the needs of the Peel Common learner.

All unit plans include opportunities for children to retrieve learning from previous units including those from Key Stage 1. We believe that it is important for children to see the current unit in its place along the progression of skills and learning within the Primary phase. Each unit plan identifies why this unit now, where it came from and where it will be bult upon further.

Assessments are made at the end of each unit and collated by the subject leader. It is their responsibility to reflect upon the unit and make changes as per the evaluations. Subject leaders identify areas to be developed such as whether the unit allows equity for all learners and provide support for teachers when delivering the units.

Impact.

The impact of our curriculum on learning is systematically monitored, evaluated and reviewed through planned activities linked to the School Improvement plan ( e.g pupil progress meetings, book and planning scrutiny, lesson observations and pupil conferencing). This monitoring and evaluation serves to adapt and improve provision to drive continuous improvement of the curriculum therefore achieving successful outcomes for all.

Each national curriculum subject has a leader who is responsible for ensuring that the requirements of the national curriculum are covered within each year group, so that as a child moves through the school they build upon their subject specific knowledge, skills and understanding. Each subject leader has worked on a progression of skills and knowledge linked to the 2 year rolling programme for their subject.

Individual subject leaders monitor impact through subject specific assessments and units and lessons are adjusted over the course of a learning journey to ensure progress can be made for all.

Moderation is an important part of the monitoring process so time is given over to moderating foundation subject work alongside year group colleagues, Infant school colleagues and colleagues from local settings. Regular moderation takes place during staff CPD, INSETS and through HIAS opportunities for English and Maths. Support from HIAS colleagues for English and Maths is provided to enable English and Maths leaders to be up to date and relevant when supporting staff in school to moderate accurately.