Curriculum

Curriculum Overview

Our Curriculum

We are extremely proud of our curriculum at Glen Hills Primary School, which we have developed to support the whole child.  We offer a high quality learning experience developed by our teachers around the National Curriculum, our children's interests and their barriers to learning.  We have planned excellent enrichment opportunities and an inclusive curriculum which takes full advantage of our local town and countryside.  We developed our curriculum to incorporate the key knowledge, skills and vocabulary needed for our pupils to succeed and build their cultural capital (cultural awareness to be successful in society).

CURRICULUM DESIGN

The curriculum at Glen Hills Primary School has been designed for our Glen Hills children, to support both their academic achievements and their personal development, ensuring all children are prepared for the next stage of their education and beyond (Education today, for tomorrow...).  We strive to provide a challenging curriculum which equips our children with the knowledge, skills, vocabulary and personal qualities necessary for life.

Our curriculum is designed by our teachers around the EYFS framework, the National Curriculum and the locally agreed syllabus for Religious Education.  It is designed to provide progressive knowledge, skills and vocabulary for children that builds sequentially year on year.

Reading is at the heart of our curriculum, helping pupils to open doors to endless possibilities.  The development of our rich vocabulary is structured clearly within our curriculum, to ensure our children have the vocabulary to contribute to class discussions, share their views and opinions and to have an understanding of the vocabulary needed to access and understand high quality reading texts.

Our 'Route to Resilience' personal development programme supports our children to build independence, resilience, tolerance, respect and to increase their cultural capital.

We believe our curriculum to be ambitious and inclusive to all children.  Where necessary, individual adaptations are made to meet the needs of our pupils.

CURRICULUM INTENT STATEMENT

Education today, for tomorrow...

At Glen Hills Primary School we offer all our children a challenging and enriched curriculum to provide them with the knowledge, skills, vocabulary and cultural capital to succeed as lifelong learners.  

We work hard across our curriculum to develop the learning; so what we teach our children today, is remembered tomorrow and beyond.

We offer an inclusive curriculum that is accessible for all through a responsive and adaptive teaching approach.  Additional support is provided where appropriate to pupils, such as 1-1 adult support, small group support, vocabulary banks, writing frames and/or additional resources.  Children who need their learning to 'go deeper' will be challenged through challenge activities.  We have introduced Knowledge Organisers in the curriculum to aid retention of knowledge to the long term memory and for retrieval opportunities for use by children, staff and parents.  Our curriculum needs to be strong in phonics, reading, writing and maths, but in addition we put a great value on all subjects; so that our children are exposed to a wealth of opportunity and interest through their learning.  Reading is at the heart of our curriculum, as we believe it opens doors to all life-long learning.  We ensure reading books are appropriately challenging and encourage participation in our GH Reading Miles.  We support children who find reading more challenging with additional interventions.  Our knowledge engaged curriculum, taught alongside subject-specific skills, enables our children to learn as historians, musicians and designers etc.  Therefore, children can not only retain the knowledge and skills taught, but develop a love of learning and enthusiasm of the subjects, supporting their cultural capital and potential career choices both in school and later in life.

We also provide a wide range of enrichment opportunities across our curriculum, to enable children to experience the awe and wonder of the world in which we live.  We value our creative, sporting and cultural opportunities, alongisde all our extra-curricular activities, visitors, visits and theme days/weeks we organise.  For example we have local MP visits, synagogue visits, museum visits, History Days, Science Weeks, International Day of Language celebrations, Global Day, 'Rice Bowl' cup, Leicester Riders Basketball training, Djembe drumming concertsm two residential trips (Years 5 and 6) and the Great Glen Hills Bake Off - to name just a few.  We also deliver over 50 extra-curricular clubs a year for all our pupils.  Enrichment is a strength of our curriculum, and we recognise that it is important for Glen Hills' children, some of whom don't get these opportunities for enrichment outisde of the school.  It helps support widespread experiences helpful for their later life, so children can develop their own interests and ambitions.  Community involvement is also a key focus across the school, we support the local and wider community, from raising money for our local food bank supporting natural disasters and funding a teaching in Africa; which in turn develops our pupils' cultural capital.

Our children's personal development and positive behaviour and attitudes are supported through our 'Route to Resilience' character development programme taught to develop character, resilience and emotional well-being of our children.  It is embedded into our curriculum and the Glen Hills ethos.  Within lessons, children are aware of which 'character muscles' they are strengthening and they use these to help support situations they may face every day - on the playground, in and around school and out of school.  British Values are also woven into our curriculum (see SMSC and British Values pages) to promote tolerance, respect for others, the rule of law and learners' rights and responsibilities.

CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION

Our curriculum is implemented through the teaching of discrete lessons (History, Science, Music etc) with connected curricular links, these lessons develops the knowledge, skills and vocabulary as set out in the National Curriculum.

Each curriculum subject has a progression map, which clearly outlines the progression, skills and vocabulary we expect our children to acquire from EYFS to Year 6.

Prior knowledge is assessed at the beginning of each new topic through mind maps or quizzes.  Regular retrieval (low stake quizzes) and end of topic assessment is then used to assess learning.  Activities for retention and learning in lessons, alongside quality first teaching, are used to ensure spaced retrieval and opportunities for developing our horizontal, vertical and diagonal curriculum links.  We consider teacher questioning as key to accessing the curriculum and bridging the short to long term memory of our children.  Questioning and low stake challenges are planned to develop learning with the use of Knowledge Organisers (where appropriate).  These are shared with parents and used for homework tasks across the year.  

In order for our children to be able to access our enriched curriculum and achieve academic success, we recognise their emotional and social needs must be met so they are ready to learn, hence why we put high quality pastoral care and nurture at the heart of our teaching and school life.  The curriculum is designed with reading at its heart to ensure children develop as strong readers with a secure vocabulary base, to encourage a deep understanding of the world. 

CURRICULUM IMPACT

The impact of the curriculum is evident in the outcomes for our children.  Every child is encouraged to be the best possible version of themselves.  Our children are prepared for the next stage of their learning through the enrichment opportunities and broad curriculum they have been exposed to, where they are encouraged to have the self-belief that they can be the best they can be.  We encourage high attendance, outstanding behaviour and a strong community ethos; linked to our values of tolerance and respect. 

Our staff measure progress through formative and summative assessment.  We use end of topic assessments to show the increased knowledge pupils have acquired by the end of a topic.  Children will commit key knowledge to their long term memories and will be able to recall information from prior learning, demonstrated in low stakes quizzing.  

Developing and monitoring our curriculum is a whole school process during which groups within subject areas are scrutinised by senior leaders, subject leaders and class teachers and adapted as necessary.  This best practice knowledge ensure we continue to develop a curriculum appropriate for our children.