Our Curriculum
Pupils are proud of their school and excited to share their learning and experiences. Leaders provide an ambitious curriculum that ensures all pupils achieve well. Learning is carefully planned, and pupils are highly motivated to learn. Leaders provide a wealth of opportunities to enrich pupils’ wider development. They provide pupils with well considered school visits and visiting speakers.
Ofsted 2023
The National Curriculum is statutory. It lays out the range of subjects we must teach and sets the standards pupils are expected to reach at the end of each key stage of learning. Our School Curriculum incorporates the National Curriculum and goes beyond it. We have adapted and extended the National Curriculum to meet the particular needs of our pupils and families. It is a curriculum designed to work for all in our community.
At Earlsfield, we offer our pupils an inspiring curriculum that is broad, balanced, diverse and reflective of the global society and culture in which we live. We believe that all children should be challenged to become masters of their own learning. At each stage of education, our school curriculum needs to prepare pupils for adult life by equipping them with the knowledge and skills they need to be responsible, respectful and active citizens who contribute positively to society, developing their understanding of fundamental human values, their understanding and appreciation of diversity, celebrating what we have in common and promoting respect for all.
Our curriculum allows pupils to grow as individuals, as learners and as future citizens through promoting skills in critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity, citizenship and character.
We integrate Michael Fullan’s 6Cs into our pedagogy and lesson planning, to ensure that the classroom is a safe and collaborative environment. Teaching through the 6Cs taps into the curiosity and innovation naturally found in children. The 6Cs also improve the pupils’ social-emotional learning, giving them the “why” in life, which helps them develop coping skills to combat the challenges ahead.
Critical Thinking: We teach our pupils to use reasoning and analysis to respond to and assess situations, experiences, and problems.
Collaboration: We create opportunities for our pupils to work together as a team and to incorporate the skills and talents of each individual to create a better outcome.
Communication: Our pupils learn to present information clearly to inform, persuade, or motivate, while also listening to and valuing others’ opinions, voices, and evidence.
Creativity: We enable our pupils to innovate and explore new ideas for problem-solving.
Citizenship: We develop the pupils’ understanding of their connection to and role in the global society and culture, and how they can contribute.
Character: We promote the development of the pupils’ responsibility, kindness, and civility.
Our curriculum intent
Through our curriculum we want:
Children to challenge themselves.
We celebrate effort as well as achievement and are committed to individual and collective success, placing no ceiling on aspiration and enabling all children to succeed. Effective use of English and fluent mathematical knowledge are essential components of any curriculum, particularly in language. Learning in school and more broadly in life is hugely dependent on the ability to read as is communication in written form. Numerical fluency is core knowledge required by all subjects across the curriculum. Maths develops the skills of reasoning, deduction, problem-solving, representation and logical connection, which are crucial thinking tools for wider learning.
Children to inspire others through their behaviour and attitude.
We expect the children to demonstrate exemplary behaviour so they are safe and can participate in all aspects of school life.
Children to be proud of their school and their achievements.
We support them in achieving this through developing a love of learning through effective teaching and a broad and balanced curriculum that reflects the school’s values. We place the child at the centre of learning, nurturing their creativity, developing independence and resilience and ensuring that they are able to access a relevant and appropriate curriculum that meets their needs
Our staff have high aspirations for all our children and want to enable them to succeed.
Learning happens in a relationship between teacher, pupil and the tasks children engage with. The quality of teaching and depth of challenge is essential, and added to the attitudes and behaviours pupils bring to learning, leads to high levels of engagement. This is achieved by teachers:
- having high standards of communication through the development of articulate pupils and strong home-school partnerships.
- sharing good practice both within school and in the wider learning community and learning from each other.
- supporting each other to help deliver the school’s vision through high quality appointments, good professional support and appreciation.
Children to be socially responsible and respectful of one another.
Everyone experiences life challenges that can make us vulnerable and at times, anyone may need additional emotional support. PHSE is valuable part of school life. We take the view that positive mental health is everybody’s business and that we all have a role to play. We are committed to promoting positive mental health and emotional wellbeing for all students, their families, members of staff and governors.
Children to embrace diversity and care about the wider world.
We have a diverse school community. Our children need to learn and understand this context. They need to an understanding of social inequality and how to challenge this in a respectful manner. We want our children to have their own self identity whilst being respectful and appreciative of others, take pride of their school and are respectful and supportive of each other, celebrating diversity, being socially responsible and believing in and promoting our values.
Children to promote rights and responsibilities and enjoy all opportunities.
At Earlsfield we believe the best interest of the child should come first and that it is important children are taught about their rights and responsibilities, while also raising children to be socially conscious citizens. UNICEF’s four key points for being a Rights Respecting School underpin our values and, we believe, enriches our curriculum, helping children to learn about their own rights but also rights denied to children both currently and historically around the world:
- Children are happier and healthier
- Children feel safe
- Children have better relationship
- Children become more active and involved in school life and the wider world.
Children believing in and demonstrating our Core Values:
- I Care by being considerate, helpful and thoughtful
- I Inspire others by being a positive role model to my peers
- I Challenge myself by aiming high, overcoming obstacles and never giving up.
- I Achieve by having self-belief and determination to be successful
- I Respect my community by treating everyone equally
- I Enjoy learning because I make the most of all the exciting opportunities
Our curriculum structure
English, Maths, Science, PE and RE are taught discretely but links are also made within the curriculum.
Reception to Year 6 follow a curriculum map, with pre-planned topics and enquiry questions. Nursery follow a more organic and personalised curriculum, where planning and provision responds to the pupils’ interests as they progress through the year.
Objectives outlined in the statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage EYFS (September 2021) the non-statutory Development Matters (July 2021) and The National Curriculum (2014) framework for Key Stages 1 and 2 have been used to develop progressive ‘I can’ statements linked to subject skills from Nursery to Year 6. Please see the ‘I can …’ progression document for a breakdown of the skills we cover in each year group in Art, DT, Geography, History, PSHE and Computing. These ‘I can …’ statements build upon prior learning and provide opportunities to consolidate and deepen knowledge to help learners remember the content they have been taught.
Years 1-6
We teach the foundation subjects (DT, Geography, History, PSHE) and Computing through a Topic based approach to learning, which links subjects together and teaches the skills that underpin the whole curriculum. Pupils are encouraged to make links between different subjects, creating curriculum cohesion and enabling pupils to link their learning appropriately. Teachers also plan opportunities for pupils to make links with core subject learning and Literacy (Reading, Writing and Spoken Language) and Maths based outcomes are planned into each topic cycle.
Some knowledge and skills are revisited over time. This approach helps embed new learning in long-term memory, through the act of repetition. Repetition for learning is not simply about replicating previous lessons; it involves the act of retrieving previously learnt knowledge and then developing it. Many subjects involve low stakes quizzing which facilitates the retrieval of previously learnt knowledge. This is helpful with identifying gaps in learning and subsequently appropriate action can be taken.
Early Years
In the Early Years, we recognise that young children learn best when they are active. We understand that active learning involves other people, objects, ideas and events that engage children for sustained periods. Therefore, we ensure learning is as practical as possible and includes both the indoor and outdoor environment.
Our Early Years setting follows the curriculum as outlined in the statutory framework of the EYFS.
The EYFS framework includes seven areas of learning and development that are equally important and inter-connected. However, three areas known as the prime areas are particularly important for igniting curiosity and enthusiasm for learning and for building a child’s capacity to learn, form relationships and thrive.
The prime areas are:
- Communication and language
- Physical development
- Personal, social and emotional development
The prime areas are strengthened and applied through four specific areas:
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the world
- Expressive arts and design
Children’s play is an essential and rich part of their learning process, supporting them in all areas of development. Play-based activities range between carefully planned and prepared opportunities, to child initiated momentary experiences. Staff also take into account the individual needs, interests, and stage of development of each child in their care and use this information to plan an enjoyable and challenging curriculum. Where a child may have a special educational need or disability, staff consider whether specialist support is required, linking with relevant services and outside agencies, where appropriate.
Alongside the Early Years Curriculum, we deliver phonics sessions using ‘Read Write Inc.’ (RWI) resources. In the Nursery, children are introduced to phonics through a ‘Sound of the Day’. All children are taught further aspects of the program through small group work. Reception pupils participate in whole class teaching sessions and group work with appropriate scaffolds and challenges to ensure all pupils are supported and challenged according to their needs. In addition, the children are encouraged to use their developing phonics skills in all writing opportunities presented through topic work.
All sessions use rigorous and dynamic teaching methods to create enthusiastic readers, confident speakers and willing young writers.
Enrichment
We enrich learning within each topic and inspire children to want to find out more by planning school trips, visitors and workshops. These trips and visits underpin the topics and set the children’s learning into real life contexts, helping them to make sense of it. Home learning projects and homework tasks also enhance our topic outcomes and achievements; children go home inspired by their learning, wanting to delve deeper and find out/do more.
Our curriculum impact
Measuring the impact of the curriculum is an ongoing process through:
- evaluating the effectiveness of the way in which the curriculum is designed
- evaluating the effectiveness of the way in which the curriculum is taught
- evaluating the pace of pupil progress, pupil outcomes, and pupils’ preparedness for their next steps.
We do this by:
- analysing pupil outcomes
- conducting regular Governor meetings
- gathering feedback from parents, children and teaching staff
- carrying out lesson observations
- carrying out 'Book Looks'
- conducting learning walks
- gathering Pupil Voice
Other measures we take into account are:
The hidden curriculum: The taught curriculum (in other words, the teaching and learning which takes place in planned lessons) helps pupils prepare for the next stage of their lives. However, we also consider the “hidden” curriculum: experiences that occur in the spaces between lessons. Thus, we consider what the words and actions of all the adults in our school say to pupils about our values and attitudes and which of these are most important in our lives and help us to become responsible, global citizens.
Explicit or implicit: at Earlsfield, we consider whether or not the skills that pupils need in order to be prepared for the next stage of their lives should be taught explicitly or implicitly - in isolation or as “transferable skills” - or through a subject discipline as a domain-specific skill. Critical thinking is not, for example, a transferable skill as some level of background knowledge is needed in order to be critical about it. You must first acquire deep knowledge in a subject before you can be taught how to think critically about that subject. Some skills are transferable because they are used in many subjects across the curriculum and in similar ways e.g. structuring an argument, working in a team, giving feedback to a peer, internet research, note-taking, and so forth.
Transitions: We need to consider how our school curriculum helps pupils adjust to all the changes they face while in education. This includes the transition between schools as well as between the various phases, stages and years of education.
Our topic based approach
Where practically possible (and as outlined above) we have adopted a topic based approach that encapsulates many of the foundation subjects.
If you would like to find out more about our curriculum please email admin@earlsfield.wandsworth.sch.uk and we will put you in touch with the relevant member of staff.