Our Curriculum and context

Our curriculum:

• Is aspirational and written to meet the complex needs of our children

• Is rich in knowledge, which children use readily and remember

• provides wider experiences and opportunities beyond the classroom with amazing trips and visits to exciting places

• Is engaging and relevant and uses evidenced based kagan structures in its delivery

• Is sequenced so that children’s knowledge builds and schema grows.

• Is purposely designed using research to inform choices.

• Ensures that children read widely and often, enjoying a range of genres and authors.

• Promotes our values of being respectable, responsible, safe and kind

Once you have read the information in this section, if you wish to find out more about our Curriculum, please contact Kerry Captstick, our curriculum lead on capstick.k@charlestown.manchester.sch.uk   

Our context:

Our school is situated in the highest 5% of deprived areas in England and the number of children that receive pupil premium funding is more than double the national average.

Our number of children with additional needs has now reached 34%.

Our mobility factor is high meaning many children have little stability and move schools often.

Many children also start with us with very little English, meaning that they have to work really hard to be able to access the curriculum and pass statutory tests such as the phonics screening in Year 1 and SATs in Y6.

These factors have been at the forefront when designing our Curriculum over the last 3 years. 

We believe our curriculm needs to tackle the impact and needs of underserved communities, opening our children’s eyes to the word and to get the excited about the opportunities that are out there to discover. For some children, education will break the poverty cycle within their family and enable a healthier, more fullfilled future. 

We have rewritten our curriculum to meet our children’s needs. It builds upon progressive knowledge and skills and develops collaboration through regular use of kagan structures.

Our curriculum is designed to enable children to make connections between their developing knowledge and skills, their prior learning, and their experiences.  Our digital strategy and use of technology also enables our learners to be forward thinking, innovative and in keeping up with technological advances. We have invested heavily in our digital technology to enable all children to have the opportunities to thrive in preparation for their future employment.

Class teachers are responsible for planning the delivery of the curriculum for their class. They make decisions with their year group partner about what resources and materials they will use and how they differentiate access to learning appropriately and what kagan structures to use for maximun impact. Teachers focus their daily preparation and planning around what children already know (using proven retrieval practice and assessment) and by considering what they are learning to do (skills) or know (knowledge) next. They also use tried and tested kagan structures to engage and focus learners.

Subject leaders are responsible for designing the curriculum and ensuring the progression in core knowledge, skills and concepts from early years through to year 6. They ensure that all teachers are familiar with curriculum expectations through clear documents, support, monitoring and clear communication, with a focus on ensuring that outcomes can be achieved by all pupils and that children are prepared for their next stage of learning.

Class teachers evaluate the current level of children’s learning each lesson using retrieval practice techniques. They then use a range of techniques througout each session using small steps and effective questioning. They use this to analyse how effecively children are achieving or exceeding expectations and adapt their planning and delivery accordingly. Teachers provide Subject Leaders with summative information about the outcomes of children in their class.

Subject Leaders routinely evaluate the summative outcomes for their area of responsibility. They use this analysis to identify any necessary actions to develop the quality of provision in their subject and to benchmark outcomes against expectations beyond their school.

British values commitment

At Charlestown, the British values of democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs are rooted in our curriculum and the way in which we treat each other through our key school value of being safe. Children learn about these values through assemblies, class PSHE/circle time sessions and through our purposely designed curriculum. Please see our overview below.

Wellbeing commitment

Mental health and wellbeing is also a priority here at Charlestown and our brilliant PSHE curriculum runs alongside our Learning mentor work, place2be counsellor and a Family support worker, to ensure that children and families are in the right place mentally to learn and be supported to learn. We focus on the five ways to wellbeing, with many opportunities to be active, learn a new skill, talk through feelings and emotions, socialise and give to others. We believe these are crucial to developing a well-rounded, independent individual that can take strategies into their adult life and continue to be successful. Our older children become mental health champions and our PSHE curriculum develops understanding about positive relationships.

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