Curriculum Intent Statement

Curriculum Overview

At Howard Primary School, every child is recognised as a unique individual. We celebrate and welcome differences within our diverse school community, sharing events of cultural significance to our students and, in particular, ensuring inclusion is interwoven into our curriculum. In line with the National Curriculum, we promote the Fundamental British Values that children will need to become responsible and pro-active citizens. Those Fundamental British Values include democracy, the value of a society living under the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs (and for those without faith). We are a Rights Respecting School, putting children’s rights at the heart of all we do, embedding our core values in daily school life and giving children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives and to be responsible, active citizens.

We place value on promoting pupil voice, inclusively encouraging all children to pursue their interests and to promote issues of importance to them. There are numerous opportunities for young people to share their perspectives on their learning journey and demonstrate their leadership skills, including School Council, Curriculum Committee, Eco Council, Year 6 Librarians, Squabble Busters, Travel Ambassadors and Language Ambassadors. Our focus is to raise aspirations and engender a sense of pride in achievement, provide a purpose and relevance for learning and to ultimately allow every child to discover their strengths and interests.

Our curriculum is underpinned by a clear vision for every child to learn to embrace diversity and to demonstrate our four core values:

• Be Kind
• Be prepared
• Be respectful
• Be safe

 

It is real, relevant, inclusive and engaging. At the heart of what we teach is the children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and understanding. These values represent both the ethos of the school and the qualities that we feel children will need to prepare them for life in and beyond primary school in our diverse society.

How we teach

Key terms:  Core Subjects: English, Maths and Science.  Foundation Subjects: Music, Art, History, Geography, RE, Computing, Design and Technology, PE, RHE, Spanish. Children in KS1 will also have regular Forest school sessions.

Our curriculum is reviewed on an annual basis, with changes and improvements being made as necessary to support our children in closing any gaps in their understanding, build enthusiasm for learning and to develop the skills needed to creatively and critically appraise and analyse the ever-changing world around them.

At Howard Primary School, we value the vital role that the EYFS plays in securing the foundations for future learning and view this crucial stage as the first step towards preparation for life for our youngest children. Our EYFS curriculum aims to build a strong foundation of prerequisite knowledge and skills for the next stage of our children’s education.

Our EYFS curriculum adopts a holistic approach to learning which enables every child to develop socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically, creatively, and intellectually to reach their full potential as they progress through their life at school and beyond. We promote a strong collaborative partnership between parents, children and practitioners to support children's learning and development by building upon children’s prior learning and experience. Our Early Years curriculum is influenced by continuous pedagogical research and consideration of our children’s interests and reflections on their own learning needs.

 

We provide a broad and balanced curriculum in which each of the seven areas of the EYFS national framework curriculum is of equal importance, providing our children with the essential knowledge and skills to prepare them for future success. Each child is valued as an individual and teaching and learning is based on the understanding that children develop at different rates. The EYFS at Howard values the voices of our pupils. Pupils learn in an engaging and vibrant indoor and outdoor environment which provides daily opportunities for the progressive development towards achieving the following Early Learning Goals:

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Communication and Language
• Expressive Arts and Design
• Physical Development
• Understanding the World
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development

 

More information on this can be found here: Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework.

 

In KS1 and KS2, we follow the National Curriculum, which is adapted to be relevant to our context and community (National Curriculum Framework). Maths, English / Phonics and Reading are taught daily with Science, the other core subject, being taught for one afternoon per week. Each child will have two lessons of PE per week, with one lesson focusing on skills following the REAL PE curriculum. Relationships and Health Education (RHE) is also taught on a weekly basis across the school. Art and Design and Technology (D&T) are taught in two week blocks so that pupils will have the opportunity to delve deeply into projects for these two subjects on a termly basis. Each term, History is taught for one half term, with one lesson per week and Geography is taught the other half term, giving equal weight to both humanities subjects. When not doing a blocked subject, the other foundation subjects, Music, Religious Education (RE) and Computing are also taught on a weekly basis. KS2 also have weekly Spanish lessons with our specialist languages teacher.

We are fortunate to have Year 3 and Year 5 working with Croydon Music and Arts for their music lessons, where they learn violin or cello (Year 3) and keyboard or guitar (Year 5). As a school, we really value the arts and the ways in which they can support wellbeing and broader interpersonal skills for our pupils. This, combined with nurturing oracy skills, contributes to our goal of nurturing the whole child, not just core areas.

For all year groups, learning is enriched with termly trips that enhance and build on their learning experience.

Teaching and Learning Rationale

Learning is a highly complex process. As educators, our role is to make learning stick, so that what we teach is committed to our pupils’ long term memory. Cognitive science splits the memory into two parts: the working memory and the long term memory.

 

Our working memory is responsible for the intake of new knowledge, for computing that knowledge and committing it to long term memory.  Our long term memory is responsible for retrieving previous information and using that to support the working memory in gaining even more knowledge.

 

However, it is very easy for the working memory to become overloaded, which hinders the retention of knowledge.  Factors such as being provided with too much information at one time, being distracted by surroundings or things that are on your mind can all prevent children from accessing their learning.

In order to support the process of learning, whereby knowledge is preserved in the memory long term, we plan opportunities into the curriculum for learning to be repeated, building knowledge cumulatively and inclusively. Across all subjects, pupils have the opportunity for regular retrieval practice of a desirable difficulty to support them in embedding knowledge into their long term memory. Research shows that this process of interleaving, whereby depth study is spaced with retrieval opportunities at regular intervals, best supports learning.

Vocabulary and Concept Threads

We recognise the importance of vocabulary and aim to ensure that children are provided with opportunities throughout the curriculum to broaden the range of language at their disposal. Not only does this support our oracy mission but also the vast percentage of students coming from a background where English is an additional language for them. Bespoke vocabulary lessons are woven into our English curriculum and key terms connected to learning are pretaught in all subjects.

In addition, at Howard Primary we have a specific and carefully selected list of key concept terms for each Foundation Subject, which are interwoven into the children’s learning throughout their primary career. These are known as the Concept Threads. For example, the concept threads for History are:

• Democracy
• Conflict
• Immigration
• Discrimination
• Change over time
• Chronology
• Archaeology
• Innovation

Whichever History topic they are studying, there will be opportunities to reflect on and learn more about these key concepts and the children are encouraged to draw on previous knowledge gained, building connections and growing their schema of understanding to embed this knowledge in their long term memory over time. In their classrooms, these terms are dual coded, that is, they appear with an image.

 

Research shows that dual coding can support learners to retain information more effectively.