The West Twyford Primary School Curriculum

Mission Statement

Our vision is to develop happy, inquisitive and resilient life-long learners who strive for excellence in all they do: learners who are respectful, polite and kind, and who take pride in belonging to our school and the wider community. We respect everyone and treat people the way we would like to be treated.

Our Vision

West Twyford Primary School is diversity and inclusive. We welcome diversity and encourage and embrace parental and community involvement.  

We strongly believe that all children can learn and that learning is a skill that can be acquired. Where there are barriers, we seek ways to remove them by embracing different approaches and using every opportunities to ensure high-quality learning tailored to the needs of the child. We value children’s individuality and creativity, and equip them with the skills, self-discipline, and confidence to succeed.

We maintain high expectations of ourselves and each other, and through our learning behaviours, our children become equipped to deploy a range of effective approaches to learning and encounter challenges. We encourage our children to be curious about the wider world and, using their strengths, contribute positively by being active citizens.

We aim for high academic success and develop our children's aspirations. Children are taught to be ‘self-aware’ and to embrace a positive mindset. They evaluate themselves as learners, and also reflect on their qualities as individuals.

A high percentage of our children learn English as an additional language and language acquisition is central to our curriculum. Children are exposed to a broad and rich vocabulary in their learning and we provide many opportunities for pupils to practice in and master the performing and visual arts and develop their speaking and listening skills through whole school concerts, presenting speeches and class assembly performances.

Our whole curriculum is designed to offer all children a consistent approach. To achieve this we use  range of learning schemes such as Read, Write Inc, Destination Reader and Maths - No Problem. In subject areas where we have designed our own approaches we ensure consistency through subject overviews, clear medium term plans, and knowledge organisers. Our approach to learning is underpinned by: enquiry-based learning, metacognition, problem solving, dialogic learning and critical thinking. Our children are taught a range of learning behaviours that allow them to achieve and meet the challenge of education. In addition to our classroom teaching, we offer a range of memorable learning experiences beyond the classroom and have a full program of trips for each year group. 

Our Learning Behaviours:

Curiosity

Resilience

Cooperation

Independence

Discipline

Creativity

Bravery

Making Links

Our School Motto - ‘Achieving Together’

Curriculum Intent

• We provide a rich, broad and balanced curriculum, with high academic expectations for all our children.  Our curriculum meets the requirements of the National Curriculum and is adapted to our pupils’ specific needs and background. We support each child to achieve their level of personal and academic excellence irrespective of personal characteristics such as: gender, ethnicity, or socio-economic background.
• Our curriculum builds a broad knowledge base on which to build and we have the same academic, technical or vocational ambitions for all learners. Where learners have additional barriers - for example, for some learners with high levels of SEND - our curriculum is designed to meet their needs and provide appropriate challenge and progression.
• We provide opportunities that enable children to develop key learning skills through our learning behaviours. We ensure that children develop these in a range of learning approaches, including a strong focus on active,  collaborative learning
• We aim to create independent, critical thinkers who remain confident when faced with challenges.
• We want our children to be life-long learners and we expect  knowledge and skills to be retained and built upon, preparing the children for the next stage in their education.

Curriculum Implementation

Our curriculum has been carefully designed to suit the needs of our school community. Skills and knowledge are taught discreetly in subject areas giving children a broad understanding of each subject. Children acquire the ‘big ideas’ (Threshold Concepts) in each subject area through exploring different knowledge categories. The level they are taught at is determined through the Milestones. Achievement is assessed through Proof of Progress Tasks. Our curriculum is designed to embed transferable skills, without weakening skills-based learning. Proof of Progress tasks are carefully designed to assess long-term memory and the acquisition of subject-based skills. (See Appendix I for more detail) Teaching is designed to support learners to remember the content they have been taught and to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts.

Our teachers have good subject knowledge. Leaders provide effective support for those teaching outside their main areas of expertise. A professional development plan is in place to equip teachers to present subject matter clearly, promoting appropriate discussion about the subject they are teaching. They check learners’ understanding systematically, identify misconceptions accurately and provide clear, direct and timely feedback. In doing so, they respond and adapt their teaching as necessary, without unnecessarily elaborate or differentiated approaches.

Our teachers create an environment that allows the learner to focus on learning. The resources and materials that teachers select reflect our ambitious intentions for the subject being learnt and clearly support the intent of a coherently planned curriculum, sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge and skills for future learning and success.

Curriculum Impact

Our lessons have clear learning objectives which are communicated to children and are comprehensible to them. We use a range of assessment strategies in our teaching, and we use this information to inform future planning to ensure that we identify and address any gaps or misunderstandings in learning.

Day‐to‐day, on-going assessment is a crucial method of assessment which provides instant feedback to the teacher and ensures progress within every lesson. AFL strategies are used in all lessons. These strategies provide a clear picture of a child’s level of understanding and, ensure that teachers can quickly assess when a child does not understand and needs greater support. Lessons are flexible enough to allow teachers to adapt to the needs of the child. We provide effective feedback to children through our feedback policy, which provides strategies to deliver this promptly and effectively.  

The impact of the curriculum is monitored through a range of styles: pupil voice, test/data outcomes, planning, monitoring of books and displays, learning walks, discussions with teaching staff, pupils and parents. The outcomes are joined-up, analysed and evaluated to assess impact and drive school improvement.

The desired outcomes of the curriculum will ensure that pupils are well rounded learners, ready to embark on high school education. They will be equipped with the foundations and skills to achieve success in later life. Pupils will have developed confidence in themselves as learners and understand that they have a range of strategies they can use to achieve and meet the challenges ahead. 

Appendix I

Threshold Concepts

• • • The big ideas that students explore in each subject
    • They are a mixture of Skills and Knowledge
    • Explored in every year group to deepen student’s understanding of them
    • Our topics are different prisms through which we explore these concepts
    • e.g. History - Investigating and interpreting the past
      • Must be taught in different contexts (Romans, Victorians etc) for students to fully understand this concept

Knowledge Categories

• • • Sub-sets of the Threshold Concepts
    • These give our Threshold Concepts context
    • Different topics allow you to explore different Knowledge Categories
    • Eg. History - Investigating and interpreting the past
      • Children cannot understand this by itself
      • It is therefore taught through the Knowledge Category ‘Artefacts’
      • Children read Samuel Pepys diary to investigate the past
      • The more knowledge children have about the context (Great Fire of London), the more they will understand how his account gives us this knowledge.
      • Covering a different source in a different topic transfers this understanding to a new context, deepening the understanding and making it more permanent

Milestones

• • • The milestones are markers of progress
    • Ensure the progression the students’ understanding of the Threshold Concepts
    • New Milestone every 2 years (Milestone 1 - KS1, Milestone 2 - LKS2, Milestone 3 - UKS2)
    • Each milestone has its own descriptors to give more detail over what progress looks like at these stages.
    • Eg. History - Investigating and interpreting the past
      • Milestone 1 for this particular threshold concept has four different descriptors. When studying Samuel Pepys’ Diary, children would ‘Observe or handle evidence to ask and answer questions about the past.

Proof Of Progress Tasks

• • • Activities that assess the children’s depth of understanding of the Knowledge Concepts.
    • Teaching should build towards these tasks.
    • They are not tests.
    • There are three levels of Progress - Basic, Advancing and Deep

• • • Eg. History - Investigating and interpreting the past
      • Compare and Contrast Samuel Pepys’ account of the Great Fire of London with another historical source.
      • This is an Advancing level question at Milestone 1.