Our Curriculum

A “broad, balanced curriculum” centred on reading and phonics was highlighted. Staff swiftly support pupils who need help to catch up, and older pupils take pride in leadership roles .The curriculum fosters British values, respectful relationships, and experiences like visits to places of worship — contributing to well-rounded citizenship". Ofsted 2023

Lees-003

Our curriculum is thematic using our unique location to encourage outdoor learning. All learning promotes basic skills to ensure children are ready for the next step in their lives.

We use our well-developed outdoor space, including Wildlife Area and outdoor classroom. Lees is at the heart of the village and we link with the local community throughout the year.

Intent

To create a broad and ambitious curriculum which provides opportunities for all our pupils to develop clearly identified key knowledge, contextualised vocabulary and skills in all National Curriculum subjects. This ensures our children are ready for the next stage of their education. The fundamentals our curriculum are based around the core skills of speaking, listening, reading, writing and arithmetic.

We intend to put children’s personal development at the forefront and use a ‘thematic curriculum’ of experiences to engage and enrich their education whilst building knowledge cumulatively throughout a child’s educational journey.

The curriculum will clearly define the knowledge children will be expected to acquire at specific points during their education at Lees.

Implementation

After a knowledge harvest Teachers define key knowledge, vocabulary and skills and establish the best learning environment and activities to deliver this.

Teachers are mindful of the knowledge which children need to acquire and retain in order to build on previous learning through a well-planned sequence of lessons.

Each sequence of lessons is geared towards a clearly defined end point which is that the children are ready for the next stage of their learning.

Teachers are clear about prior learning and revisit this with low stakes testing (including using technology through Quick Quizzes) combining a cumulative pedagogical approach with the introduction of new knowledge.

Teachers are constantly assessing whether or not the new knowledge has been retained before moving on in the sequence of planned lessons

Impact

This will focus on how well our intent has been realised.

We will use a variety of monitoring and assessment methods to find out whether children know what they are meant to know at specific points.

The teaching team will assess whether or not the children have retained and understood key knowledge to ascertain that learning has taken place.

We use rigorous monitoring throughout the year to assess the impact of the school’s curriculum design.