Curriculum
Intent
Yenton Primary School cares deeply about the education of children and, in particular, in creating a learning experience that nurtures and develops independent thinking.
We want children to leave our schools with views and opinions of the world. We want them to leave with a level of resilience. We want them to leave with their own strong moral compass. We want them to be ready to create positive change in the world.
We aim to:
- Create resilient, confident children who are well equipped to deal with an ever changing future.
- Engage children in an innovative and inspiring curriculum that enables children to be inspired and believe that they can become anything.
- Help children understand that all success starts with failure. Everything comes back to mindset.
The curriculum at Yenton Primary School is a bespoke curriculum, designed for our children and relevant to our local area, reflecting local history, cultures and communities. The curriculum is broad, balanced and culturally rich and is designed to provide children with engaging contexts through which to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding of the world. The curriculum is based on the 2014 National Curriculum throughout.
Trust Curriculum teams lead the design and development of our unified curriculum for the Trust. Their work is driven by our vision of education and our desire to reduce the workload of teachers by providing schools with curriculum programmes and opportunities to engage in subject-specific conversations about curriculum and pedagogy.
The work of Curriculum teams in designing and developing the Trust’s curriculum is based upon six key principles of curriculum design. Our curriculum principles are:
- Inclusive
- Experiential
- Resilience
- Progressive
- Ethical
- Adaptive
1. Inclusive
Our curriculum has been designed to be inclusive in every way possible for every child. Every child will see themselves represented throughout our curriculum. We value the whole child - celebrating and nurturing all talents and achievements. We provide the necessary challenge and support to enable all children to reach their full potential.
2. Experiential
Our curriculum has been designed to provide experiential learning opportunities, giving children first-hand experience that makes learning memorable. These purposeful experiences take place both inside and outside the classroom and build children's cultural capital.
3. Resilience
Our curriculum is designed to build and develop resilience in our children so they develop confidence in their own abilities. Our aim is to promote a growth mindset in all our children so that they can overcome obstacles and reach their goals. Our curriculum provides relevant challenges and problem solving activities and ongoing mentoring and support.
4. Progressive
Our curriculum is cumulative and progressive. The spiral design builds children's skills through increasing complexity and depth. Learning journeys are carefully sequenced in order for children to make connections and build knowledge into their long-term memory.
5. Ethical
Our curriculum is underpinned by our values. Mutual respect and the rights of the child are promoted and woven through all of our provision. Our aim is to develop children’s opinions based on knowledge, understanding and British values alongside respecting views of others. We strongly believe in developing our children as global citizens which will enable them to extend their energy and compassion outwards towards others.
6. Adaptive
Our curriculum is flexible and responsive. Our aim is to be forward thinking, at the cutting edge of society, providing our children with learning experiences so they have the knowledge and the skills to adapt to an ever changing world.
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Curriculum
In our Early Years, we promote a welcoming, happy, relaxed and stimulating atmosphere. We recognise the importance of working closely with parents at this crucial time, developing strong relationships. We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Statutory Framework as laid out by the Department for Education.
A variety of teaching styles are used to deliver the curriculum effectively according to the age, experience and ability of the pupils, and this is tailored to their individual needs and interests. Progress is monitored carefully and information is regularly sent out to keep parents informed of their child’s progress.
The classrooms are bright and stimulating, providing opportunities to develop social skills, build relationships, problem solve and promote independence. We provide well-planned, high quality indoor and outdoor learning.
Teaching is delivered through adult-led focused activities, as well as child-initiated play, developing the seven prime areas of learning. Children have access to a wide range of enticing, intriguing and engaging resources to enable them to learn through continuous provision, applying the skills taught and building self-confidence in order to take ownership of their own learning.
A strong early years curriculum ensures that we have solid foundations from which the children can grow and develop.
Read more about how we plan our curriculum across the academic year:
Key Stages 1 and 2 Curriculum
Our curriculum puts into practice the requirements of the National Curriculum.
Here is a brief outline of our curriculum for KS1 and KS2:
Read more about how we plan our curriculum across the academic year:
Implementation
All staff at Yenton Primary School recognise and embrace the need for an evolving curriculum to best meet the changing needs of our children.
The curriculum has been designed to ensure all children are not merely covering content but achieving a depth to their learning which enables them to use their knowledge, skills and understanding across all areas of the curriculum. Our spiral curriculum is meticulously planned to allow opportunities for retrieval and building on prior knowledge. This builds children’s knowledge and skills, and ensures learning becomes memorable through fun, interactive, stimulating lessons.
Children’s knowledge and skills are developed through a range of teaching strategies including skillful questioning, modelling and precise and purposeful feedback. The children are taught in mixed ability classes and using a range of teaching techniques including whole class teaching, small group work and individual teaching.
To engage, immerse and ‘hook’ the children in their learning experiences, every classroom environment reflects the theme that the children are learning about. The children are also provided with a range of real-life experiences and purposefully selected resources to support the learning. These learning opportunities are not only used as a tool for engagement, but also to support, deepen and enrich the learning experiences taking place inside and outside the classroom.
National Curriculum requirements, knowledge and skills progression documents are mapped out by subject leaders. Our subject leaders work to ensure all staff have the necessary training, resources and time to provide the planned curriculum for our children.
You can learn more about how each individual subject is taught in the documents below:
Impact
The children at Yenton Primary School are placed at the centre of our curriculum ensuring they have been provided with a range of experiences that develops knowledge, skills and understanding across the curriculum and as a result, remember more, make good progress and achieve well.
The impact of the curriculum is monitored through: regular monitoring of teaching and learning through coaching sessions; examinations of children’s books, pictures and displays; parent and pupil voice and statutory assessments.
Collaboration regarding the development and implementation of our curriculum within the MAT network of schools is also important to ensure consistency of expectations and achievements.
Learn more about how the children's knowledge progresses in each subject:
(certain documents are to follow)