At Watlington we strive to have a curriculum that embodies our school’s core values and vision. A curriculum that allows pupils to achieve and be successful, developing a rich knowledge base that allows pupils to build on their existing knowledge. We desire for our pupils to develop independence, both in their learning, in preparation for their next steps but also to self-regulate and navigate different scenarios they encounter as they go through school.  We wish to develop children’s resilience, through providing a range of opportunities for children to develop personally.

Our vision is to equip all members of our school community with the knowledge, skills and love of learning to continue with their next steps.

We do this by:

• Delivering our curriculum to develop the knowledge and cultural capital to ensure every member of our school community achieves the best they can.
• We adopt change and continually evaluate the impact of our decisions to improve the lives and learning of our school community.
• We nurture and empower people to become confident problem solvers, develop independence and resilience.
• We are part of our community and learn from all the people that make up our community.

In 2022-2023, we reviewed our curriculum and through research and consultation with staff and pupils established our school values and common intent for our curriculum. That is, to develop a curriculum that is knowledge rich and allows to build new learning on prior learning.  Using research from cognitive science to ensure lessons are sequenced and delivered in such a way to best suit how children learn.

We value education as this is the basis which prepares our children for their next steps and as staff we are continually learning and reflecting to improve our practice.  We understand that teachers have the biggest impact on the education of children and strive to continually develop our practice and focus on aspects we believe will have the biggest impact on outcomes for children.

At Watlington, we know that the Early Years Foundation Stage is the key to pupil’s success at school. It is of paramount importance that children’s first introduction to schooling is positive, as evidence demonstrates how the quality of early childhood education impacts on later school outcomes, as well as future employment prospects and physical and mental health.  In the Early Years, children are welcomed with a play-based curriculum, with adult led activities. The key foundations of learning; phonics and number are introduced in the first term and begin to develop a love of learning, reading and sharing books.

The curriculum is delivered in discrete subjects divided into topics or units, all pupils will receive their full curriculum entitlement and exposure to the range of subjects, taught at a level that is appropriate to age related expectations and meeting the requirements of the National Curriculum, these subjects include;

• English
• Mathematics
• Science
• PSHE and Life Skills
• Humanities – Geography and History and Religious Education
• Creative Arts including Music, Art and Design Technology
• Religious Education (as agreed by the Norfolk Syllabus)
• MFL – French
• Physical Education

Each subject has a curriculum map which maps out the order of the topics each term for each year group from Year R to 6. This is carefully planned so that each topic builds on the content from previous topics.  In KS1 the topics are grouped by a theme which where feasible links subjects together. At KS2 each subject is discrete and poses a big question for the unit which connects the learning through the lessons in the sequence.  Each subject has an outline scheme of learning which sequences the lessons within the unit and provides teachers with suggested activities to achieve the learning intention.

We are a community school and involve various members of our community to be involved in our children’s education including reading volunteers, the PTA, parents, governors, our local vicar, local Imam, guest speakers, pre-school and parish council.

Our curriculum is supported by curriculum enrichment activities to support pupil’s personal development.  These activities include:

• House Days including STEM day, ART Day, RE day
• Afterschool Clubs – Craft Club, Football, Choir, Dance, Archery/Basketball/ Dodgeball
• Trips
• Residential Trips: Year 4-6
• The Grand Sing
• Guest Assemblies
• Church Services & Collective Worship
• Parent Cafés
• Interschool football competition
• KS1 Sports festival
• KS1 Dance Festival
• Local Cross-Country Competition
• Sports Leader Award
• Healthy Minds and Body Programme
• Mini Medics Course
• Book Fair
• School Council
• Piano/ Guitar/ Drum Lessons
• Ukulele Lessons
• Charity Fundraising events
• Sport’s Day
• Themed days and world events - e.g. remembrance day

We use evidence from P. Agarwal’s Powerful Teaching, Willingham’s model of memory and Rosenshine’s Principles of instruction to inform our practice. This research highlights the benefit of retrieval practice every lesson to encourage pupils to remember more and therefore learn more.  New learning in each topic is broken down into small steps across a series of planned lessons; the curriculum is sequenced carefully to ensure new learning builds on previous learning, along with the opportunity to recall previous knowledge and make links with new topics.

Learning activities and teaching styles are not prescribed but a variety of approaches will be used in lessons, including:

• Retrieval practice – daily, weekly and longer term  – using a variety of questioning techniques, brain dumps/free recall, quick quizzes, cloze activities, KWL grids
• Direct teacher instruction following a I do, we do, you do for modelling
• Variety of questioning methods to encourage learning and thinking;
  • open and closed questions,
  • process questions (how do you know? how did you work that out? what made you think that?)
  • probing questions (what other reasons could there be? Is this always true? Is there another example?)
  • ‘cold calling’
  • “say it again better’
  • mini whiteboards or show me boards
  • questions that check for understanding (what have you understood?)
• Think, pair, share and snowballing discussions
• Debate and belief lines
• Concept Cartoons
• Practical work and independent enquiry
• Mind mapping
• Independent research
• What a good one looks like (WAGGOL) – sharing model texts or explanations
• Literacy activities and extended written tasks- explanations, story telling
  • OREO model for persuasive writing – opinion, reason evidence opinion
  • IPEEL writing frame– introduction, point, explain, evidence, link
• Educational games / Retrieval games
• Use of concrete, pictorial and abstract ideas for delivery of new concepts. Use of different representations for concepts, using visual representations and text/words for imparting information (dual coding).
• In Early Years, direct instruction and continuous provision, child-initiated play
• Individualised approaches for pupils’ specific needs e.g. SALT programmes, Attention Autism, Intensive interaction, social stories, Zones of Regulation, TEACCH stations, sensory circuits

Minimum Expectation each week –

• 5 hours maths, 4 hours of English
• 1 hour RE
• 30mins  PSHE
• 2 hours PE
• 1 hour Science
• 1 hour Humanities
• 1 hour Art/DT
• 30 min Music/ drama
• 30 mins MFL -KS2
• Daily mile each day
• Guided reading 20mins
• KS1 Phonics – 40-50 min day
• SPAG – 20min
• 1 hour ICT
• Assembly (MTWT) 10:45am
• Morning work (8:45-9am) – handwriting, reading comprehension or sentence structure work

Subject specific lessons start with 5 knowledge rich retrieval questions– using questions on knowledge from last lesson, last topic, last year, this allows pupils to recall previous learning from long term memory and open discussion to make links between old learning and new.

Learning Objectives - displayed in books and shared at the start of each lesson- explain to pupils how this lesson builds on the previous lessons.

Working walls – Maths, English, Science and Humanities, should include relevant information, resources to support learning, these are referred to in lesson and build upon through the topic. Useful and new vocabulary should be display here to create a word rich environment.

Lesson Structure – Retrieval Practice, Learning Objectives (and enquiry question), introduction/ teacher input – recap previous year’s knowledge, introduce new knowledge, independent practice with a range of activities, plenary – summing up and chance to demonstrate new knowledge, self/peer assessment.

Feedback – Teacher and TA to circulate and assess throughout, giving verbal feedback, support or extension to ensure all pupils master the objective, therefore closing any gaps in learning.

Use TAs to encourage independence –

We want our pupils to achieve knowledge and skills at least in line with their age-related expectations, we will measure this through teacher point in time assessment three times per year based on statutory and other assessments including but not limited to:

• Key Stage 2 Assessments
• Key Stage 1 Assessments (optional from 2024)
• Year 4 Multiplication Times Table check
• Year 1 Phonics Screening check
• Early Years Foundation Stage Profile
• Reading Book level
• Phonics Phase Assessments
• End of unit quizzes & assessment tasks
• SATs practice papers and online SATs papers
• Questioning and feedback
• Observations and wow moments
• Written work/ Hot writes
• NFER Reading, SPAG, Spelling Tests
• Salford Reading Test