Curriculum Vision Statement

Curriculum at Brisbane Park
Our Curriculum Vision

At Brisbane Park we seek the highest standards of attainment for all our children. We aim to help our children to become independent learners. Above all we believe learning is fun.

We promote our school vision statement - ‘Believe in Yourself.’     

We believe that learning is a shared commitment that involves children, parents, governors and staff to ensure our children are given the best possible learning opportunities.

Our topic approach allows children to access our broad and balanced curriculum with a strong emphasis on experiential learning. Children are given opportunities to access a vocabulary rich environment. We ensure children achieve high standards in the core subjects whilst having the opportunity to learn life skills through developing confidence and independence through Global Learning and British Values.

Intent – we provide children with

• a broad and balanced topic based curriculum with a strong focus on experiential learning. 
• a language rich environment

Implementation –

• the highest standard of attainment for our children
• teachers ensure questions thought about and planned for
• effective modelling of skills
• challenges and support strategies in place to suit all children, booster groups and interventions
• ongoing formative assessment to inform future planning
• moderation within school and out of school to inform future planning
• strong working partnerships created and maintained with parents and carers
• opportunities for children to work in mixed ability groups
• classroom environments to be tidy and organised, displays are clear, bright and relevant to promote learning
• all classrooms to have a child appealing reading area with a variety of books changed regularly
• investigation opportunities to reinforce and embed skills

Impact –

• happy, confident, nurtured children
• children believe in themselves
• children have a love of learning
• children make at least expected progress with the attainment gap closing
• children aspire to be confident citizens
• children will be happy and fulfilled in later life

Our values at Brisbane Park help to shape the way our Curriculum is developed to ensure we are embedding t
At Brisbane Park we work as key stage teams to ensure an effective and exciting curriculum is planned for our children. The curriculum leader and head teacher oversee the planning to ensure appropriate coverage for each subject. 

  Each member of staff has responsibility for leading and developing a subject across the school, the following shows subject responsibility.                                 

Our school’s curriculum includes all the planned activities that we organise in order to promote learning, personal growth and development. It includes not only the formal requirements of the National Curriculum, but also all the other activities that the school organises in order to enrich the children’s experiences.

Curriculum and Planning     

Our governing body’s curriculum committee is responsible for monitoring the way the school curriculum is implemented.

The head teacher is responsible for the day-to-day organisation of the curriculum. The head teacher monitors the weekly lesson plans for all teachers, ensuring that all classes are taught the full requirements of the National Curriculum, and that all lessons have appropriate learning objectives.

The curriculum leader will monitor the whole curriculum throughout the school, and feedback to the head teacher, focussing particularly on breadth of coverage each year group is covering and if this fits in with the appropriate curriculum for each year group. Planning should be based on topic as much as possible. The curriculum leader will also monitor enrichment and enhancement activities to ensure thy support teaching and learning. Homework, timetables and challenges will also be monitored

Each curriculum area has a subject leader who is responsible for writing and updating policies for their subject and keeping up to date with new initiatives related to their subject.  They will each have an up to date subject leader file. They are responsible for monitoring coverage and attainment in their subject area throughout the school, this includes termly analysis of Scholar Pack for their subjects and knowing how children in different groups are progressing in these areas.

Long Term Plans  - Termly plans are produced by each year group and given to the head teacher who displays these in school, these plans show the coverage planned for that term linked to the appropriate curriculum. Long term plans are the same for both classes within the year group.

Medium Term Plans - Half termly plans are produced by each year group showing a detailed breakdown of coverage for that half term. Medium term plans are the same for both classes within the year group.

Short Term Plans - Weekly/daily plans are produced for English, Literacy, Maths and Phonics lessons across the school, these should be detailed enough for a supply teacher to follow if needed and should state the desired learning outcome for each lesson (matched to curriculum), challenge for each ability group and use of additional adults within the lesson. A weekly overview will be produced by all class teachers showing objectives and brief lesson description for all other subjects.

Plans are annotated daily by teachers and senior teaching assistants to show how each lesson has gone or if the lesson was changed. Teachers are responsible for ensuring appropriate coverage of curriculum each term.

Children’s work is recorded in a variety of books (see appendix 1 of book recommendations for each key stage)

Any out of school activities should enhance and enrich the curriculum children are following.

EYFS

At Brisbane Park we follow the EYFS Foundation Stage Curriculum with all children working towards achieving the Early Learning Goals by the end of Reception. The documents Development Matters and Early Outcomes are considered when planning for and assessing our Foundation Stage children.  The EYFS is made up of seven areas of learning and development, all areas are crucial in early learning and often interconnect.         
The three prime areas are: -

• Communication and Language
• Physical Development
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development

The four specific areas are:-

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding of the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

The curriculum in EYFS is a balance of planned, purposeful play, both indoor and outdoor, adult led work and child initiated work. The children will have the opportunity each day to explore different areas of the classroom as part of their continuous provision and also work with an adult on a focus directed task. Whole class sessions are also be delivered to children. Teachers plan for a balanced, creative curriculum. All areas within the EYFS will be planned for. Child initiated activities will be noted down on weekly/daily annotations of lessons. Observations carried out by the EYFS team identify children’s next steps for learning and their progress is recorded regularly.  Children in EYFS have daily phonics and handwriting sessions.

KS1

In Years 1 and 2 the New National Curriculum 2014 is followed. The subjects taught are Mathematics, English, Science, Computing History, Geography, Design Technology, Art and Design, Physical Education and Music. The topic approach allows teachers to link their topic within the other subjects where possible, e.g. History and English. In English comprehension, handwriting, SPaG and Phonics should be taught as part of the curriculum in both year groups.  At Brisbane Park we teach White Rose Maths scheme of work which covers all areas of the National Curriculum. The Letterjoin handwriting scheme is followed. Other areas we cover are PSCHE through the Dimensions scheme, Global Learning and British Values.
Due to KS1 having mixed classes we have our topics running on a 2 year rolling programme.

The teaching approach will be varied throughout the day with opportunities for whole class teaching, group work – ability and mixed ability, independent work, 1:1 work. There will be a variety approaches too to allow for different learning styles and class teachers will adapt accordingly for individual children and classes.  Children will be taught in own classes by their own class teacher and supported by senior teaching assistants and the Inclusion Officer. 

Inclusion

We believe every child is important and deserves to be given the best possible learning opportunities. If a child is identified as having a problem with their learning we provide learning tasks matched to their needs. Children are given the chance to work 1:1 or in a small group situation. The Inclusion Officer, with support from class teachers and senior teaching assistants, writes IPPs for these children and these are monitored and updated half termly. Our Inclusion Officer, Miss Cheryl Hagen, is available to advise and direct staff in the best approach for children struggling with their class work. Provision maps for each class/year group will be updated termly.

The curriculum in our school is designed to be accessed by all children who attend the school. If we think it necessary to modify some children’s access to the curriculum, in order to meet their needs, then we do this only after their parents have been consulted.

Assessment

At Brisbane Park we use Scholarpack to assess and track our children’s progress. This is updated every half term by class teachers and monitored and analysed termly by the SLT.

Phonics and reading tracking is completed termly by each class teacher and analysed by the English Subject Leader. Half termly writing assessments are carried out by each class, independent writing takes place in KS1 throughout each term and shows progress of children and the development of skills in this area. The English Subject Leader monitors all assessments related to English. Big Maths tests are carried out weekly across the school, the tests are pitched to each child’s ability and progress. The Mathematics Subject Leader will monitor tracking in each class. Phonic phase tests are carried out at the beginning and end of each Phonic Phase from 2 to 5a.

Baseline assessments are carried out during the first term of Reception.

Reading tests are carried out termly in KS1 and during the Summer Term in EYFS for those children who are exceeding in the ELGs.

Year 1 Phonics screening takes place at the end of Year 1.

End of KS1 assessments take place in May of Year 2.

Child tracking sheets are updated, on the server, each term by the class teacher.  

Teachers keep ongoing class assessment records for subjects which can be referred to as needed.

Teachers are responsible for updating Scholarpack throughout each term to be analysed by SLT at the end of each full term. Assessment at Brisbane Park is an ongoing process.