Curriculum Intent
At Roecliffe CE Primary School we aim for all learners to enjoy their education and to achieve their full potential. We provide opportunities for children to develop as independent, confident, successful learners with high aspirations who know how to make a positive contribution to their community and the wider society. There is a high focus on developing children’s moral, spiritual, social and cultural understanding.
To promote physical health and wellbeing, a range of curricular and extra-curricular activities are offered such as: cooking, sports, art, singing and computing. In collaboration with Phunky Foods our school provides a range of opportunities for our children to lead and participate in workshops around nutrition and healthy diet.
Our school values
Our school values of Faith, Courage and Love underpin our curriculum offer.
Faith to move forward in confidence and succeed.
Courage to make a difference in the world every day.
Love one another as God loves us.
Faith – we believe that having faith in ourselves and others means that we have hope and belief to be the best we can be. Our learning and development is supported by those we believe in and also from adults and peers believing in us. We take inspiration from those around us in school and from figures both in the modern day and in historical times.
Courage – we use our courage to take new steps in our learning and development, to make mistakes and learn from them and to challenge ourselves in our own thinking and others’ thinking.
Love – we work positively with others to further our learning and understanding.
In addition to incorporating our school values within our curriculum offer at Roecliffe, we have constructed a curriculum offer based on the following principles:
- balance
- rigour
- coherence
- appropriateness and relevance
- focused on children’s needs and desired outcomes
Teaching Aims
We aim for all pupils to feel positive about their learning and to confidently approach all aspects of learning across the curriculum.
Our staff motivate learners by planning lessons which are age-appropriate, specific to pupils’ social, emotional and cognitive needs and are relevant using real-life context where possible. Pupils are encouraged and challenged to achieve their full potential.
Children’s skills and knowledge are built upon systematically using robust long term plans which ensure sequential and cohesive learning.
Staff show high expectations of pupils’ behaviours and learning through modelling to the pupils; rewarding pupils when these expectations have been met and challenging and supporting pupils when they have not.
Aspiration for Learners
We provide the necessary skills throughout our curriculum which we believe our pupils will need to succeed in life, drawing upon our school values of Faith, Courage and Love and the progression of skills in our curriculum offer.
We also provide the necessary knowledge our pupils will need to draw upon in later life through the delivery of a robust progression of curriculum knowledge in all subject areas.
The Roecliffe curriculum offer is all the planned activities that we, as a school, organise in order to promote learning, personal growth and development. The offer includes not only the formal requirements of the National Curriculum, but also the range of extra-curricular activities that the school organises in order to enrich the experiences of our children. It also includes the ‘hidden curriculum’, or what the children learn from the way they are treated and are expected to behave.
Our curriculum is enriched by staff selecting and adding educational content or new learning opportunities which strengthen the children’s understanding by applying it in a different context. This often takes the form of trips, themed days, visitors in school and other learning opportunities which can provide our children with new ways to absorb knowledge and gain skills.
Extra-curricular provision changes and updates throughout the school year to allow for a range of experiences to be gained by our pupils. Both our curricular and extra-curricular activities are planned carefully to consolidate prior learning and apply it in different contexts.
Our school creates links with individuals and organisations in our community whenever possible to provide our children with rich and varied experiences linked to their learning.
Our pupils visit a local residential care home which provides opportunities for social interaction with older members of our community, often supporting our pupils’ understanding of care and empathy. Our pupils also benefit from learning experiences with visitors such as our Police Community Support Officer who consolidates learning around contextual safeguarding issues. Our parents, as specialists in a variety of employed positions, offer their knowledge and skills when this is relevant and provide real-life context to the learning or relevant topic being taught in school.
We teach children how to grow into positive, responsible people, who can contribute and also co-operate with others, whilst developing knowledge, skills and attitudes to lifelong learning in order that they achieve their true potential. We refer to our three school values of Faith, Courage and Love throughout time spent learning and also in our Collective Worships.
Implementation
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Learning to learn
We have used the research carried out by the Education Endowment Foundation https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/metacognition to understand how best to incorporate meta-cognitive strategies into our curriculum in order to support children in becoming reflective and self-aware learners. Children are encouraged to maximise their learning through regular evaluation of their own learning abilities and reviewing the knowledge they have acquired.
We learn from our mistakes and children are encouraged to self-assess at regular intervals in order to evaluate and track their understanding and effectiveness as a learner. Pupils are supported by staff to understand their next steps so that they can be a more effective learner.
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Exploring morals and values
At Roecliffe CE Primary School the development of children’s morals and values is key to our Christian ethos and vision as a school. We want children to flourish as individuals and as part of our school community. Our school values of Faith, Courage and Love are explored and integrated into our everyday life at school through our curriculum offer and whole school events such as collective worship and support of charities. Children are recognised for their achievements in these areas by their peers, their teachers and members of the community.
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Taking inspiration from everything
Inspiring children to succeed is at the heart of our vision. Our curriculum includes carefully chosen educational visits and experiences which enrich the children’s learning, providing inspiration and making them eager to learn. We make use of our rich local resources to inspire children such as outdoor learning around our school locale at Badger Wood or on the village green and in the community such as our local library, shops and residential care home.
To expand children’s knowledge of the wider community, we also visit places further afield at venues such as theatres in nearby towns or in cities such as Sheffield to attend an annual concert at an arena.
The reading spine inspires children to love literature through a well-considered choices of texts from a wide range of genres and authors from a variety of backgrounds. Our Roecliffe reading offer ensures that our pupils benefit from a robust schedule of reading experiences to support them in their enjoyment of language and development of reading skills.
Our collective worships, humanities and arts subjects include reflections and studies into the impact of inspirational individuals who have led the way in defining change, challenging stereotypes and courageous advocacy. We look at inspirational people at school, community, national and international level and how they can influence us to have high aspirations, be brave in our choices and make a difference.
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Emotional wellbeing
Positive mental wellbeing is key to high attainment and happy children. At Roecliffe we promote, develop and maintain good wellbeing inclusively with every child benefiting from our whole-school systems. Children’s work is adapted to suit their interests where suitable, and altered where required to allow them to learn in an environment and using an approach to recording which supports their emotional wellbeing and helps them feel success. All pupils are supported to understand and adopt strategies for maintaining positive mental health.
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Questioning and problem solving
Children are supported to develop their skills in sharing opinions, listening to the opinions of others, acceptance of the inconclusive and to have an understanding of philosophy. These skills are transferable across the curriculum where children listen and question well, engaging in collaborative learning techniques designed to promote listening and questioning.
Our Forest School experiences provide children with opportunities for open ended learning, problem solving outside the classroom and supported risk-taking.
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Time to Reflect
Children are offered both verbal and written feedback and time to reflect on their learning in all areas of the curriculum. Live marking takes place during lessons and provides immediate feedback to pupils as they practise and apply the skills and knowledge they have recently acquired.
Through the use of Tapestry, parents, children and staff share moments of their learning at home and at school. This creates a holistic family-centred approach to feedback and supports strong relationships between learners, their families and school.
During lessons, children are provided with opportunities to reflect on their work with their peers, monitor their own progress and discuss next steps with teachers for their learning progression.
Pedagogy
The implementation of our curriculum centres on three key pedagogies which allow our children to grow and flourish by teaching them to learn:
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Learner Centred Approach through Active Learning and Outdoor Education
Children are active and the learner-centred approach puts the learner’s needs first. We understand that children regularly need to move and our staff provide opportunities for learning to take place actively, inside or outside, when it is appropriate to do so.
Woodland learning creates a whole-school community where risk taking is encouraged, children learn through scaffolded tasks following careful observation, and the natural world is at the heart of the curriculum. Woodland learning aims to promote the holistic development of all those involved, fostering resilience, confidence, independence and creativity. All children receive woodland learning sessions throughout the year which links and applies learning in the classroom to an outdoor context.
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Emotional Wellbeing
We foster the best outcomes for our children by understanding the importance of emotional wellbeing as a foundation for academic success. Children are supported to acquire the understanding, skills and personal relationships required to develop, and sustain, healthy social and emotional wellbeing. We believe this is paramount in giving children the best chance of positive outcomes throughout their primary school career.
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Meta-cognition
Teachers support and improve pupils’ attainment across the entire curriculum by enhancing pupils’ ability to think about their learning, evaluate their progress, and to set and monitor goals.
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/metacognition
This is achieved by teachers:
- activating pupils’ prior knowledge
- providing explicit information and modelling strategies/skills to the pupils
- providing opportunities for pupils to benefit from guided and independent practice
- providing reflection time for pupils to evaluate and plan next steps in their learning
Consistent planning
Progression documents
Each subject follows a progression of substantive knowledge and a progression of disciplinary skills linked to the National Curriculum. This form of quality assurance means that progression is tracked through a subject from Nursery to Year 6 and ensures that teachers and subject leaders can reference the prior learning which has taken place to ensure learning is coherent.
Long Term Planning
Each subject has a long term plan for the year. Termly plans are shared with the parents on the school website so that they can talk to their children about what they are learning at school.
Assessment
Continual, formative daily assessment in lessons takes place through the monitoring of pupils’ understanding from adult/child interactions taking place throughout the series of lessons.
Through the use of retrieval sessions, pupils’ understanding of prior learning is checked and any misconceptions are corrected. We use retrieval practice to help pupils transfer information from their short term memories into their long term memories
Termly data captures in October, March and June record pupil attainment from the term’s formative assessment outcomes in writing and foundation subjects.
Summative assessment takes place in reading and maths using NTS test papers in Year 2 – 5 and old SATs papers are used for Year 6. Formative assessment information is combined with summative assessment through NTS tests in reading and maths.
Impact
Pupil outcomes in reading, writing and maths at the end of key stage 2 in 2024 are:
| Subject | Average scaled score: school 2023/24 | Average scaled score: national 2023/24 | % of pupils achieving the expected standard: school 2023/24 | % of pupils achieving the expected standard: national 2023/24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| English reading | 111 | 105 | 100% | 74% |
| English grammar, punctuation and spelling | 105 | 105 | 83% | 72% |
| Mathematics | 105 | 104 | 100% | 73% |
| English writing (teacher assessment) | – | – | 67% | 72% |
| Science (teacher assessment) | – | – | 83% | 81% |
Feedback from some of our pupils about our curriculum offer (Sept 2024)
Things at school that help me to learn:
“Ten frames help me to learn maths” (Year 1 child)
“Phonics because it helps us to read” (Year 1 child)
“The things on the smartboard shows us what we are meant to be doing and breaktime helps my body reset and get ready for learning again.” (Year 3 child)
“I like base 10 in maths, it really helps” (Year 3 child)
“Amazing teachers” (Year 3 child)
“I like Flashback Four because it gives us a recap of what we have learned.” (Year 3 child)
“Active learning helps me to learn because I can think better when I have been moving.” (Year 4 child)
“Retrieval helps us to remember things better” (Year 5 child)
“Using our chromebooks helps me to enjoy the learning more sometimes” (Year 6 child)
Things we have had fun learning about and enjoyable experiences at our school:
“I loved making art on the chromebook and computing is great!” (Year 1 child)
“We loved the visit to the theatre!” (Year 1 children)
“Swimming lessons are really good” (Year 2 child)
“I enjoyed learning all about James Herriott last year” (Year 3 child)
“I liked coming back to school after the summer holiday to see my friends again” (Year 3 child)
“I loved going to Badger Wood to do forest school activities and learn more science things” (Year 4 child)
“Learning about Nelson Mandela has been really interesting and inspiring” (Year 5 child)
“Our France trip was really good. We cuddled goats and made bread. Playing on the beach was the best bit!” (Year 6 child)
“Going to London and seeing Buckingham Palace and going on the Eye was amazing. Oh, and Matilda at the theatre was the best thing ever!” (Year 6 child)