Curriculum

Find out more about the curriculum we offer at Graveley Primary School.

Intent

At Graveley School we are committed to providing a safe, positive environment where pupils are happy and resilient learners who strive to be the best they can be. Our Christian vision is at the heart of all we do.

Our pupils are at the centre of our curriculum design. It recognises children’s individuality, as well as addressing the needs of our community, to make sure that all pupils receive a curriculum that inspires and prepares them academically, socially and emotionally for their next steps.

Broad and balanced, our curriculum aims to provide our pupils with opportunities to deepen their understanding by developing a rich and deep subject knowledge, understanding the purpose and value of their learning and seeing its relevance to their past, present and future. We hope children will develop and demonstrate their own creativity and have their hearts inspired by the challenge and enjoyment of learning. With this in mind, we aim to promote a thirst for knowledge, share our own love of learning, and to equip all pupils with the knowledge skills and cultural capital they need in order to succeed and become life-long learners.

Implementation

As a school, we use the Cornerstones Curriculum Maestro, to provide exciting and creative learning opportunities for our pupils. Our curriculum is mapped coherently and deliberately to build knowledge and skills year on year, whilst making links between subjects and themes, reinforcing key concepts and vocabulary, and ensuring full coverage of the National Curriculum and EYFS requirements.

The Cornerstones Curriculum itself is a creative and thematic approach to learning that is mapped to the 2014 Primary National Curriculum to ensure comprehensive coverage of national expectations. It is based on a child-centred pedagogy called The Four Cornerstones and is delivered through Knowledge Rich Projects (KRPs), which provide a rich menu of exciting and motivating learning activities that make creative links between all aspects of children’s learning. Each topic begins with a memorable experience and is divided into four stages: engage; develop; innovate; express. We believe children learn better when they are encouraged to use their imagination and apply their learning to engaging contexts. Our curriculum provides many learning challenges throughout the academic year that require children to solve problems, apply themselves creatively and express their knowledge and understanding effectively.

Using Curriculum Maestro, the implementation of subjects centres around ‘big ideas’ to sculpt and shape the curriculum.  These ‘big ideas’ are the foundations of each subject and ensure progression, breadth and balance.

• Humankind – understanding what it means to be human and how human behaviour has shaped the world.
• Nature – understanding the complexities of the plant and animal species that inhabit the world.
• Processes – understanding the many dynamic and physical processes that shape the world.
• Place – understanding the visual, cultural, social, and environmental aspects of places around the world.
• Creativity – understanding the creative process and how every day and exceptional creativity can shape the world.
• Comparison – Understanding how and why things are the same or different.
• Investigations – understanding the importance of investigation and how this has led to significant change in the world.
• Significance – understanding why significant people, places, events and inventions matter and how they shaped the world.
• Materials – Understanding the properties of all matter, living and non-living.
• Change – Understanding why and how things have changed over time.

The Graveley School Curriculum is planned on a 2-year rolling programme to provide equity of opportunity for pupils in our mixed-age classes, whilst ensuring children in each specific year group are challenged appropriately. Although some subjects are taught in a discrete way, e.g. phonics, maths, RE and PE, the Cornerstones Curriculum enables us to teach through a cross-curricular approach, inspiring and engaging our children.

The following subjects are supported and taught using subject specific resources and schemes including:

• Maths – The Herts for Learning Essentials Maths Planning
• Phonics – Little Wandle
• PSHE/SRE – Jigsaw
• R.E. – The Hertfordshire agreed syllabus and the Church of England’s ‘Understanding Christianity’
• Music – Charanga Music
• P.E. – Primary P.E. Planning
• French – Language Angels
• Computing – Barefoot (linked into the Cornerstones Curriculum)

Subject/curriculum overviews for each class can be found here:

Impact

At Graveley, children are assessed during lessons, enabling teachers to plan the next steps for each child. Teachers assess against the specific objectives or skills of a lesson, providing live, quick and meaningful feedback to pupils throughout the lesson. Individual pupil progress is tracked using the Curriculum Maestro assessment tools, allowing teachers and subject leaders live access to curriculum coverage and progression lesson by lesson, term by term and year by year. Cornerstones provide a rigorous skills and knowledge framework that outlines the end of year expectations in all subjects. These skills and knowledge are tied to activities and are age-related so that our staff can track children’s progress and identify their individual learning needs.

Senior Leaders and Subject Leaders monitor individual subjects by: reviewing learning; evaluating pupil voice; and providing feedback to move practice forward.