Curriculum Intent Statement

Curriculum Aims:

• To provide a happy, caring and secure learning environment in which each child and member of staff may develop to their full potential
• All children to believe and value the characteristics of R.E.S.P.E.C.T and become confident and resilient children
• To ensure all children are ambitious, have a Growth Mind-set and a determination to succeed
• To enable the children to be good citizens , who make positive contributions to their communities
• To develop cultural capital to give our children the vital background knowledge required to learn about and understand the world they live in, so they can flourish and reach their potential
• To ensure children are healthy, safe and have positive well-being
• To foster, nurture and develop all talents
• To ensure children are engaged, inquisitive and inspired to learn
• To ensure our curriculum is broad, balanced, progressive and ambitious for all learners
• To have a curriculum that is designed with an understanding of the working memory, making links to learning and building and deepening knowledge and skills through inclusive practice for all learners
• To put reading at the heart of our curriculum
• To close the vocabulary gap
• To encourage parental engagement

Curriculum Drivers:

The following areas drive and shape the breadth of our curriculum. They are derived from an exploration of the backgrounds of our students, our beliefs about high quality education and our values. As a result of our Curriculum the children will be:

• Responsible young adults
• Knowledgeable
• Ambitious
• Curious
• Inspired
• Excited

At Alfred Street Junior School, our curriculum is designed to inspire children and create excitement and curiosity for learning.  We aim to ensure high achievement for all and to support pupil well-being and character development.  We aim to play a valuable role in helping to shape rounded, determined young people who can face the challenges of the modern world with confidence. We achieve this by providing opportunities and encouraging pupils to develop a wider set of skills and qualities such as resilience, leadership, communication, empathy and perseverance, which are vital for each pupil's successful learning. We acknowledge successes for all children, in all aspects of their development and recognise, encourage and celebrate all types of talents, cultures and individual idfferences.  

We aim to provide a curriculum that can be personalised to the needs of children, whatever their background or circumstance - encouraging our children to think critically and develop a Mind-set that thrives on looking at themselves and others from different perspectives.

Teamwork and responsibility are an essential part of our curriculum and we enable children to take on key roles such as School Councillors and Student Leadership, as well as becoming involved in the community, through celebrating local traditions, by learning new skills and enabling them to take an active part in events throughout the year.

The school’s curriculum follows the National Curriculum 2014 but has been designed to fit our local context and focuses upon our school identity – its history, tradition, links with the local community and vision for the future. It is designed to teach knowledge, vocabulary, basic skills, concepts, values and to equip the children with the skills to keep safe in society and maintain positive well-being. As they progress through the school, we aim to apply the principles of mastery creating breadth and depth in their learning and back filling any gaps or misconceptions. We recognise that for our children to become creative thinkers or to have a greater depth of understanding, they first must master the basics which provide foundations and knowledge of application and problem solving.

We aim to create rich and memorable thematic learning where possible, by providing first hand learning experiences, trips, visits and visitors in school, to enhance the learning. Our thematic approach builds on prior learning and enables links in learning to be made, so that the knowledge and skills transfer to the children’s long term memory.  We also hope to inspire the children to carry on their research and learning at home through the ‘Takeaway’ homework option.

We place a balanced emphasis across the curriculum, valuing all subjects and we are a school that enjoys its music, sports and arts along with its core subjects. We also aim to inspire the children to identify with the subjects and develop their strengths and interests, preparing them for their future occupations and interests. We are developing a rich and varied menu of enhancement opportunities to recognise and encourage talents. This is achieved through holding themed events such as Art days where we celebrate an artist, science week, making available a variety of clubs and sports at a low cost to the children, and inviting musicians and theatre groups into school, in addition to holding our own concerts and clubs. Through our charity events, awareness days, diversity events and cultural experiences, we also celebrate diversity, differences and community.

We know how vital working in partnership with parents really is in order for children to find school a positive and rewarding experience, and we strongly believe achievement and enjoyment go hand in hand to ensure each child’s excellent progress. Each half term we share with parents the topics and breadth of learning that will be taking place so that they can encourage and explore further at home. Furthermore, we hold curriculum and information evenings where we can share information. There are also many opportunities for parents to come into school. Throughout the year we update parents on the progress that their children are making in our parents’ evenings and provide opportunities for children to share their work in our ‘Come and See’ events. We also invite parents to take part in some of our curriculum enrichment and diversity events. We showcase our children’s talents to our parents through our website and Facebook page and by performing to them in events such as sports day, dance day, Christmas Medley’s and through our musical and dramatized productions.         

Implementation

Curriculum Overview 

Our curriculum distinguishes between subject ‘breadth’ - the specific substantive knowledge of the subjects that are studied, and ‘concepts’.  Students are taught the substantive knowledge  for each subject and develop the concepts associated with each subject so that they become skilled artists, designers, scientists, theologists, geographers, historians, musicians, linguists. For each of the ‘concepts’ developed, there are progressive Milestones, and these ‘concepts’ are developed in a wide breadth of topics. 

Within each ‘Milestone’ students gradually progress in their procedural fluency and semantic strength through three cognitive domains: basic, advancing and deep. The goal for students is to display sustained mastery at the ‘advancing’ stage of understanding by the end of each milestone, and for the most able to have a greater depth of understanding at the ‘deep’ stage.  This is based on the Chris Quigley model

Values Based Learning:

We use values based learning.These values are explored in assemblies, form part of our learner model, are discussed in class and promoted through activities and actions. Our values form the acronym R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Our COJO Curriculum which we develop through our termly ‘Missions’ week and regular mission tasks also teaches the children about our values and provides them with opportunities to put them into practice.

Curriculum Impact

We strive to ensure that  our children make good progress and that by the end of Key Stage 2, their attainment in core and foundation subjects is in line with or exceeding their age related expectation. We measure this carefully using a range of assessment materials to support teacher assessment. The majority of the assessment we carry out at ASJS is ‘formative assessment’. This is the ongoing assessment of how children are learning, undertaken by the teacher and supporting adults during the course of the learning process in each lesson and unit of work. This is an assessment for learning approach. We also carry out a ‘Cold Writing’ task in English and a ‘Check-in’ in Maths, early on in the unit, to ascertain prior knowledge and where to pitch our teaching. At the end of a unit, children complete a ‘Hot Writing’ task in English and a ‘Check-out’ in Maths, to show their new learning and enable the teacher to identify any current gaps or misconceptions that may need addressing. In our curriculum, we use quizzes and retrieval activities in order to enable children to demonstrate what they have learnt at the end of a unit.

As learning is a change to the long term memory, it can be difficult to see impact in the short term but we do however use probabilistic assessment based on deliberate practice. This means that we look at the practices taking place to determine whether they are appropriate, related to our goals and likely to produce results in the long term. We use comparative judgement in two ways: in the tasks we set and in comparing a student’s work over time. We use monitoring to see if the pedagogical style matches our depth expectations. In addition, we carry out summative assessments, that take place less frequently and measures how effective the learning has been. This is an assessment of  learning approach. We currently use Pixl Assessments to assess knowledge in Reading, Maths and Spag. We also assess times tables knowledge, phonological awareness and reading ages throughout the course of the year. Teacher Assessment information for English and Maths is collated 3 times a year.

Our children will also leave Alfred Street as rounded individuals with a sense of belonging and will have developed the confidence, knowledge and skills to make decisions, self-evaluate, make connections, be resilient and become lifelong learners. We measure this not just by the work that our children produce, but in the behaviours we see each and every day within school and in their daily lives.