Design and Technology at St Mary Magdalene.

Intent

Ensuring our curriculum, through our three curriculum drivers (possibilities, initiative, community), is full, ambitious and designed to give all learners, particularly the most disadvantaged and those with SEND needs, the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. Our curriculum drivers provides a broad range of experiences and opportunities to teach the context of the curriculum through pupil’s lives or experiences.

Our three curriculum drivers shape, personalise and underpin our curriculum, bring about the aims and values of our school, and respond to the particular needs of our curriculum.

These are:

Possibilities- which helps our pupils to build aspirations and know available possibilities for their future lives.

Community- which helps pupils to be an active, responsible member of our school, our church, the locality, our country and the world.

Initiative- which helps our pupils grow as independent learners.

The breadth of our curriculum is designed with the below goals in mind:

• To enable every child to reach their full learning potential in all areas of school life by recognising and catering for their individual needs, learning style and to experience ‘life in all its abundance’.
• To ensure that all children, regardless of their age, ability, gender, ethnicity, culture or special educational or physical needs, are able to learn effectively.
• To offer a provision that shows that every child matters and that they matter to God.
• To instil in children a love for learning linking to our school motto ‘Love to learn, learn to love’.
• To plan a curriculum which is motivational, inspirational, broad, balanced excellent and enjoyable.
• To encourage all staff to employ a variety of creative, innovative and inspiring teaching strategies to make learning exciting and to guide children in their learning and lines of enquiry.
• To continually monitor, evaluate and review learning and teaching to ensure continued improvement.
• To ensure that appropriate resources are available in order for staff to deliver exciting learning opportunities including use of national, local and diocesan resources.
• To ensure that the learning environment is creative, inviting and stimulating and reflects the children’s learning journey.
• To include parents/ carers in their child’s learning valuing families and family life.
• To provide learning opportunities which are deep, memorable, purposeful and challenging and lead to mastery understanding.

To ensure children are kept safe when engaging with the curriculum and safeguarding procedures are followed in accordance with the safeguarding policy.

Implementation

The Curriculum is the whole learning experience offered by the school.  It is not just the lessons and activities which are planned and taught.  It also includes the ethos for learning i.e. the attitudes and loving four values we expect implicitly in all lessons through our learning 6 behaviours. At St Mary Magdalene Primary School, we aim to teach our children how to grow into independent learners, who can also work and co-operate with others while developing their knowledge and skills, so they can achieve their full potential.

In Nursery and Reception, the children have their own set of learning behaviours which we believe matter most and help them to be successful learners. These are referred to as our ‘Learning Gems’ They consist of:

Solve my own problem. Work independently and with others.

Talk about my learning.      Keep trying even when things are tricky.

We encourage them to develop and demonstrate these throughout their work and play. These links closely to the characteristics of effective learning which is set out in the statuary framework and encourage children to be creative and critical thinkers that embrace new challenges. This links closely with our ethos and values across the school. Activities within the EYFS are designed to encourage the children’s development towards competency and confidence in these learning behaviours.

Our learning behaviours ‘Standing Together Six” which we believe children across KS1 and KS2 should display when engaging with the curriculum, consist of:

Enthusiasm   Reflective      Inquisitive

Risk taker     Aspiration   Collaboration

The curriculum should be seen as much in terms of experience as of the knowledge and skills that children should acquire. It should also be equally concerned with personal and faith development, positive behaviour and relationships.

The curriculum is designed to be creative, challenging and inspiring; the children are inspired through a range of themes, topics and independent learning activities.  The school utilises the appropriate documentation, including the National Curriculum and the Early Years Foundation Stage documentation to ensure learning matches national requirements, whilst children enjoy learning which is irresistible and engage their interests.

The school’s curriculum is based on the following principles:

• Interleaving- sequencing learning within other learning- allowing time to recall and retrieve specific learning to embed understanding.
• Conscious connections- making meaningful links between different subjects, practicing basic skills in English and Maths.
• Longitudinal learning- so that concepts and objectives can be revisited overtime.

Impact

The impact of our curriculum is that by the end of each milestone, the vast majority of pupils have sustained mastery of the milestone they have worked in.  Some pupils will have a greater depth of understanding of the threshold concepts within the milestone.  We track carefully through our assessment system to ensure pupils are on track to reach the expectations of our curriculum.

Christian Distinctiveness

As a Church of England school, we encourage children to live up to the Christian values.  These are taught and embedded through the curriculum and learning 10.

Presentation

Children are encouraged to show some ownership of their learning. They are challenged to, where possible, investigate their own lines of enquiry to achieve a learning objective and to present their findings through their own means.

When children are presenting their learning, they are encouraged to follow our expectations of what our books at St Mary Magdalene should look like. This ensures they have respect and pride in the work that they produce. 

Monitoring and Review

The Curriculum Leader will regularly monitor and review teaching and learning of the curriculum in accordance with the School Improvement Plan, recommendations from Ofsted, National Curriculum reviews and following consultation with Governors and teaching staff. 

Planning, evidence of work and observations of teaching and learning are regularly monitored by the Headteacher, Senior Leadership Team and Subject Leaders. This monitoring enables the school to review and improve current practice on a regular basis. All members of staff are aware that we are continually developing all aspects of learning and teaching to ensure excellent provision for children.  Children also have the opportunity to evaluate both the curriculum and their own progress; the feedback from this is used to mould future teaching and learning.

Governors are kept informed of developments and priorities through regular meetings and the named Governor for Curriculum works closely alongside the Curriculum leader, contributing to the Head teacher’s report and to priorities on the School Improvement Plan.

Parental Involvement

Parents/carers are viewed as active supporters of learning in our school.  They are encouraged to be part of school life through a range of activities which take place in the stunning starts, marvellous middles and fantastic finishes of our irresistible learning themes. Through our curriculum drivers we have developed a parent directory so that we draw on their experiences and expertise to maximise creative learning opportunities. We use both the parent directory and passport when considering the stunning starts, marvellous middles and fabulous finishes to our topics.

Parents/carers have regular contact with staff and are able to discuss their child’s progress on a regular basis. Additionally, the school requests that every parent/carer support their children by working with them at home on activities in their learning log which encourage children to present their own way.

The curriculum has been organised and established in consultation with all teaching staff, the senior leadership team and governors.  It will be reviewed as part of the whole school monitoring plan for each year in response to government curriculum requirements and key priorities in the School Improvement Plan.