Curriculum Overview
Intent and Design
At Fazakerley Primary School, we believe that every single child is unique and precious and we strive to ensure that every child has a truly positive experience whilst at our school. We believe the curriculum should always respond to the needs of the children and the world around them; this is ever changing so we adopt a developmental model that we constantly evolve and grow through planned reviews to make it THE best bespoke curriculum model for OUR children for the NOW. We work from a shared understanding and vision of what we, our children, families and governors think the curriculum should look like in OUR school. We want an evolving model for our curriculum asking all stakeholders; what do we want to achieve? What is important for OUR children to learn and to experience? What do our children and their families expect from an education at Fazakerley Primary School? Our whole school community know what the underpinning values of our curriculum are because they all help in building it.
We aim to translate the standards of the national curriculum into a practice that ensures deep knowledge, a promotion of the development of skills (based on what our pupils KNOW) and the two together nurture a real understanding of the subject. We want our children to experience a wider view of the world including and develop culturally of cultural diversity, to be tolerant, open minded, accepting and to live without prejudice. We want to help prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life and the world including how to be financially aware and educated citizens. We prioritise wellbeing and mental health through the implementation of the ‘Jigsaw’ programme, giving our children the lifelong skills of resilience and mindfulness through PSHE. Our curriculum nurtures independent learners for life who are gritty and know what to do when they face challenges. We work in complete partnership with our parents, carers and families valuing their contribution completely. We foster a curriculum that sets high expectations. Our children are entitled to a broad and balanced curriculum that is rich and deep in content and that is carefully designed to simultaneously engage and enthral whilst improving outcomes. Each decision on every topic which is taught is based on the best interests of our children so that their daily experiences are fun, exciting, challenging, dynamic and relevant.
At Fazakerley Primary School, we aim for:
A curriculum driven by culture. We live in a city rich with experience, people travel far and wide to visit what is on our doorstep; we take advantage of this throughout our curriculum through carefully planned experiences linked to our curriculum to enrich and enhance learning.
A curriculum rich in Vocabulary. Our curriculum keeps vocabulary at the core as it is key to the learning and progress across the whole curriculum. Our children receive explicit vocabulary instruction – taking an active and intentional approach to language development that benefits every child. We teach vocabulary in advance with intent and not just ‘as it comes up’, building systematically on pupils current knowledge so that vocabulary can be expanded. Our children are taught the vocabulary which gives them the capacity to explore new subjects and releases their potential to learn and grow as individuals. We understand how it underpins progress, impacts on attainment, affects self-esteem and behaviour and plays a huge role in a child’s future life chances. Our reading material supports all curriculum areas so that our children can ‘read around’ their topics.
Our curriculum inspires children for their immediate and future aspirations. It nurtures all the things our children hope to achieve. It guides attitudes for future learning, careers and opportunities. The curriculum encourages hobbies and interests through enrichment. It fosters aspirations, dreams, and ambitions by exposing our children to the best that has been thought, said and achieved as well as exposure to new opportunities. We strongly believe that with aspirations comes the natural incentive of improved attitude and determination to attain and succeed so that dreams become tangible– our children will set their hopes high and work hard to succeed. Our pupils are given a time to shine so that self-esteem and motivation can thrive, they will aspire to do great things because they will know how to value themselves.
Implementation
We teach science, history, geography, RE, computing, Art, Music and Design Technology discretely and continuously in blocks of time across each term so that the children can engage thoroughly in the essential knowledge and skills so that a solid understanding can be achieved. PE and PSHE are taught weekly so that regular practise of skills can help in promoting the spiritual, moral and physical development of our children. Planning is objective and not activity focused to ensure a focus remains on the essential knowledge and skills. We do however acknowledge links with other foundation areas within the teaching of the subject topics and make planned use of these to make meaningful links across the curriculum. We also teach topically through enrichment weeks including Armistice Week, STEM week (Science, Technology and Maths), Arts week, Health week and Anti-Bully Week. During these weeks the children work cross curricular to produce final pieces that celebrate these weeks. Our curriculum is carefully sequenced and delivered to promote good progress. We have identified clear end of year milestones for each year group in each wider curriculum area to ensure that the knowledge, skills and understanding are carefully sequenced to build learning and that the important building blocks for each subject are regularly returned to and layered to secure and deepen understanding of key knowledge.
We aim for the impact of our newly designed curriculum will allow our pupils to be able to readily transfer knowledge, skills, understanding as well as vocabulary across subjects. We carry out termly monitoring and moderation of subjects including children’s work, pupil voice and environment. This allows us to monitor coverage, progression as well as the implementation of the whole school intent.
At Fazakerley Primary School, we believe that the curriculum should be alive! The children must have a voice to say what they enjoy most and what they need to learn. We listen to our children and respond and we will continue to do so! Here's to a rigorous, lively and enjoyable curriculum that is fun to learn and a pleasure to teach!
Subjects and Topics
