Curriculum Intent

Curriculum: Implementation

Our curriculum is carefully sequenced: progression documents clearly outline both the knowledge and skills developed in each area of study. Dedicated time for revisiting key knowledge is given in each lesson, and class teachers’ planning allows time to recap previous learning in order to then build on knowledge and understanding in new, yet related, areas of study.

Purposeful links are made across the curriculum, meaning that knowledge and understanding is consolidated.

We value the power of authentic experience; learning is brought to life and given relevance and meaning. We therefore carefully map trips, excursions and in-school events across school, supporting our key driver of ‘Writing the Chapters of Our Life Story’ by ensuring a balance of coastal, urban and rural experiences.

At the heart of our collective teaching pedagogy lies evidence-informed practice. We value Rosenshine’s principles of instruction grounded in a range of evidence in Cognitive Science research, observation of master teachers and research on cognitive scaffolds – and these can be seen in practice in classrooms across school.

Pedagogy: Our Method And Practice Of Teaching

Consistency of approach is a priority to us at St. Joseph’s. What we teach across school will differ depending on the age of the children, but the methods and approaches to teaching are consistent across our school.

When planning for learning, we consider how learning has been defined in cognitive psychology as an alteration in long-term memory:

If nothing has altered in long-term memory, nothing has been learned. Progress, therefore, means knowing more (including knowing how to do more) and remembering more. When new knowledge and existing knowledge connect in pupils’ minds, this gives rise to understanding. It is appropriate, therefore, to understand the way knowledge is stored as a complex, interconnected web or ‘schema’. Where pupils lack prior knowledge, they may find it difficult to learn new knowledge or skills, because their short-term, working memory is likely to become temporarily overloaded. If they are able to draw on their long-term memory and attend to a small number of new features in what they are learning, they are much more likely to learn and make progress.

With this in mind, it is crucial that teaching regularly revisits and connects prior knowledge. This is outlined in the curriculum promise and is continuously and explicitly emphasised. This can strengthen the memory and contribute to greater fluency. Informed by Rosenshine, teaching is designed so that new material is delivered in small steps with models that guide student practice towards fluent, independent outcomes.

Our approach is simple and consistent:

• we know what we want to teach in the long term
• we have clear short-term goals for children
• we build upon pupil’s prior learning and experiences
• we scaffold learning to support children in their thinking
• we give appropriate support to help children overcome barriers to learning

Outstanding teaching, leading to outstanding learning outcomes is central to the work and mission of the school. All staff have a responsibility both collectively and individually to strive always to deliver lessons where the teaching and learning is of the highest quality and where the learning needs of all students are met. The single most important factor in how a child learns in the classroom is how well a teacher teaches.

Teaching and Learning

Our approach is a universal provision based on reducing cognitive load and the actions that ‘master’ teachers regularly employ within their lessons to enable learning to occur. A metacognitive approach to Teaching and Learning is consistent at St. Joseph’s and applied across the whole school.

 Deliberate teacher habits can support pupils to develop independent learning behaviours. Pupils at every stage of learning can be supported to achieve if they are able to choose strategies

Pupils will develop self-sufficiency by being taught a process through explicit modelling and touching. Eventually pupils go on to develop strategies for themselves by recognising similarities and differences between things they’ve seen and done before. When this move from dependence to independence occurs, pupils are more successful and better equipped to face challenges outside of school.

Individual lessons in all subjects are designed to incorporate the EEF’s Gradual Realise model to support metacognition and self-regulated learners. This framework supports teachers in developing their pupil’s independence. We use a format when planning which follows the framework and helps teachers explicitly plan, deliberately shifting the responsibility from themselves to the pupil during a lesson or over the course of a series of lessons.

The following icons are used when planning and teaching, as reminders to staff and children about the type of learning they are carrying out, whether it is:

The Framework:

1. Teachers consider the key concepts they have taught previously and what pupils need to know to access the lesson. There will be differences in what each child knows about a topic, but consideration must be made as to what the essential knowledge is and how teachers will ensure all pupils have it before they move on.

Children begin lessons with Interleaving a short knowledge retrieval session. The knowledge revisited may have been taught the previous week, term, year, even key stage, to allow children to make links between old and new learning, thereby activating prior knowledge. In some cases, interleaving is informed by summative assessments and gaps in pupil’s learning. We regularly review the previous week’s work every week and the previous month’s work every fourth week. Research suggests that classes that do this achieve more.

2. The learning objective (new learning) and vocabulary is explained by the teacher.

3. Teachers consider how they will explicitly demonstrate perseverance, resilience and learning from mistakes they have learned in the past.

 Modelling by the teacher is the foundation of effective teaching; revealing the thought processes of an expert learner helps to develop pupils’ metacognitive skills. Teachers should verbalise their metacognitive thinking (‘What do I know about problems like this? What ways of solving them have I used before?’) as they approach and work through a task. Scaffolded tasks, such as worked examples, allow pupils to develop their metacognitive and cognitive skills without placing too many demands on their working memory.

4. Carefully designed guided practice will help those in extra need of support in a way which promotes and sustains their confidence one a scaffold is removed. Support is gradually withdrawn as the pupil becomes proficient, allowing pupils to develop skills and strategies before applying them in independent practice. A key challenge for teachers is to ensure that classroom activities provide opportunities for pupils to demonstrate their learning so that teachers and pupils can make informed decisions about the amount of progress being made. It is therefore crucial that planning and teaching includes effective discussions and tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning.

5. Pupils will need varying amounts of guided practice. Teachers will plan for them to have the opportunity to engage in independent practice. Activities should be designed to make maximum use of lesson time, providing adequate time to practice and embed knowledge, understanding and skills securely. In addition, there needs to be a balance of teaching (delivery and content) and learning (understanding) within a lesson. The teacher must consider carefully what they want the students to do with the learning.

For all activities to be successful, instructions and explanations need to be clear and specific.  Opportunities to develop literacy and numeracy are accounted for wherever possible and high expectations and standards of effort, accuracy and presentation are expected.

Pupils need to be encouraged and challenged, beyond their current experience, in order to maximize their growth. Lack of challenge can lead to disengagement and conversely pitching a task to high without manageable steps can demotivate learners. Therefore, teachers need to plan for learning to be progressively more demanding whilst supporting any who fall behind.

6. Independently or in small groups, pupils are supported to think about what went well and what they could do differently next time. Self-regulated Learners are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and know how to improve their learning.

All learners approach any learning task or opportunity with some metacognitive knowledge about:

• our own abilities and attitudes (knowledge of ourselves as a learner);
• what strategies are effective and available (knowledge of strategies); and
• this particular type of activity (knowledge of the task).

Pupils are taught the reflection process of plan, monitor, evaluate.

The diagram below represents the metacognitive self-regulation cycle. When undertaking a learning task, we start with our knowledge, then apply and adapt it. This is metacognitive regulation. It is about planning how to undertake a task, working on it while monitoring the strategy to check progress, then evaluating the overall success.

Curriculum: Implementation

Our curriculum is carefully sequenced: progression documents clearly outline both the knowledge and skills developed in each area of study. Dedicated time for revisiting key knowledge is given in each lesson, and class teachers’ planning allows time to recap previous learning in order to then build on knowledge and understanding in new, yet related, areas of study.

Purposeful links are made across the curriculum, meaning that knowledge and understanding is consolidated.

We value the power of authentic experience; learning is brought to life and given relevance and meaning. We therefore carefully map trips, excursions and in-school events across school, supporting our key driver of ‘Writing the Chapters of Our Life Story’ by ensuring a balance of coastal, urban and rural experiences.

At the heart of our collective teaching pedagogy lies evidence-informed practice. We value Rosenshine’s principles of instruction grounded in a range of evidence in Cognitive Science research, observation of master teachers and research on cognitive scaffolds – and these can be seen in practice in classrooms across school.

Pedagogy: Our Method And Practice Of Teaching

Consistency of approach is a priority to us at St. Joseph’s. What we teach across school will differ depending on the age of the children, but the methods and approaches to teaching are consistent across our school.

When planning for learning, we consider how learning has been defined in cognitive psychology as an alteration in long-term memory:

If nothing has altered in long-term memory, nothing has been learned. Progress, therefore, means knowing more (including knowing how to do more) and remembering more. When new knowledge and existing knowledge connect in pupils’ minds, this gives rise to understanding. It is appropriate, therefore, to understand the way knowledge is stored as a complex, interconnected web or ‘schema’. Where pupils lack prior knowledge, they may find it difficult to learn new knowledge or skills, because their short-term, working memory is likely to become temporarily overloaded. If they are able to draw on their long-term memory and attend to a small number of new features in what they are learning, they are much more likely to learn and make progress.

With this in mind, it is crucial that teaching regularly revisits and connects prior knowledge. This is outlined in the curriculum promise and is continuously and explicitly emphasised. This can strengthen the memory and contribute to greater fluency. Informed by Rosenshine, teaching is designed so that new material is delivered in small steps with models that guide student practice towards fluent, independent outcomes.

Our approach is simple and consistent:

• we know what we want to teach in the long term
• we have clear short-term goals for children
• we build upon pupil’s prior learning and experiences
• we scaffold learning to support children in their thinking
• we give appropriate support to help children overcome barriers to learning

Outstanding teaching, leading to outstanding learning outcomes is central to the work and mission of the school. All staff have a responsibility both collectively and individually to strive always to deliver lessons where the teaching and learning is of the highest quality and where the learning needs of all students are met. The single most important factor in how a child learns in the classroom is how well a teacher teaches.

Teaching and Learning

Our approach is a universal provision based on reducing cognitive load and the actions that ‘master’ teachers regularly employ within their lessons to enable learning to occur. A metacognitive approach to Teaching and Learning is consistent at St. Joseph’s and applied across the whole school.

 Deliberate teacher habits can support pupils to develop independent learning behaviours. Pupils at every stage of learning can be supported to achieve if they are able to choose strategies

Pupils will develop self-sufficiency by being taught a process through explicit modelling and touching. Eventually pupils go on to develop strategies for themselves by recognising similarities and differences between things they’ve seen and done before. When this move from dependence to independence occurs, pupils are more successful and better equipped to face challenges outside of school.

Individual lessons in all subjects are designed to incorporate the EEF’s Gradual Realise model to support metacognition and self-regulated learners. This framework supports teachers in developing their pupil’s independence. We use a format when planning which follows the framework and helps teachers explicitly plan, deliberately shifting the responsibility from themselves to the pupil during a lesson or over the course of a series of lessons.

The following icons are used when planning and teaching, as reminders to staff and children about the type of learning they are carrying out, whether it is:

Lessons are typically broken into six steps to reduce cognitive load, and help pupils to know more and remember more.

The Framework:

1. Teachers consider the key concepts they have taught previously and what pupils need to know to access the lesson. There will be differences in what each child knows about a topic, but consideration must be made as to what the essential knowledge is and how teachers will ensure all pupils have it before they move on.

Children begin lessons with Interleaving a short knowledge retrieval session. The knowledge revisited may have been taught the previous week, term, year, even key stage, to allow children to make links between old and new learning, thereby activating prior knowledge. In some cases, interleaving is informed by summative assessments and gaps in pupil’s learning. We regularly review the previous week’s work every week and the previous month’s work every fourth week. Research suggests that classes that do this achieve more.

2. The learning objective (new learning) and vocabulary is explained by the teacher.

3. Teachers consider how they will explicitly demonstrate perseverance, resilience and learning from mistakes they have learned in the past.

 Modelling by the teacher is the foundation of effective teaching; revealing the thought processes of an expert learner helps to develop pupils’ metacognitive skills. Teachers should verbalise their metacognitive thinking (‘What do I know about problems like this? What ways of solving them have I used before?’) as they approach and work through a task. Scaffolded tasks, such as worked examples, allow pupils to develop their metacognitive and cognitive skills without placing too many demands on their working memory.

4. Carefully designed guided practice will help those in extra need of support in a way which promotes and sustains their confidence one a scaffold is removed. Support is gradually withdrawn as the pupil becomes proficient, allowing pupils to develop skills and strategies before applying them in independent practice. A key challenge for teachers is to ensure that classroom activities provide opportunities for pupils to demonstrate their learning so that teachers and pupils can make informed decisions about the amount of progress being made. It is therefore crucial that planning and teaching includes effective discussions and tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning.

5. Pupils will need varying amounts of guided practice. Teachers will plan for them to have the opportunity to engage in independent practice. Activities should be designed to make maximum use of lesson time, providing adequate time to practice and embed knowledge, understanding and skills securely. In addition, there needs to be a balance of teaching (delivery and content) and learning (understanding) within a lesson. The teacher must consider carefully what they want the students to do with the learning.

For all activities to be successful, instructions and explanations need to be clear and specific.  Opportunities to develop literacy and numeracy are accounted for wherever possible and high expectations and standards of effort, accuracy and presentation are expected.

Pupils need to be encouraged and challenged, beyond their current experience, in order to maximize their growth. Lack of challenge can lead to disengagement and conversely pitching a task to high without manageable steps can demotivate learners. Therefore, teachers need to plan for learning to be progressively more demanding whilst supporting any who fall behind.

6. Independently or in small groups, pupils are supported to think about what went well and what they could do differently next time. Self-regulated Learners are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and know how to improve their learning.

All learners approach any learning task or opportunity with some metacognitive knowledge about:

• our own abilities and attitudes (knowledge of ourselves as a learner);
• what strategies are effective and available (knowledge of strategies); and
• this particular type of activity (knowledge of the task).

Pupils are taught the reflection process of plan, monitor, evaluate.

The diagram below represents the metacognitive self-regulation cycle. When undertaking a learning task, we start with our knowledge, then apply and adapt it. This is metacognitive regulation. It is about planning how to undertake a task, working on it while monitoring the strategy to check progress, then evaluating the overall success.

Scaffolding

Teaching and learning at our school will take the backgrounds, needs and abilities of all pupils into account. We will scaffold learning to remove barriers to learning and cater to the needs of all of our pupils, including:

• Pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
• Pupils with English as an additional language (EAL)
• Disadvantaged pupils
• Pupils that are more able

With the aim of personalising learning to match individual needs, scaffolding should be carefully planned. Before teachers consider how they will adapt the content, process and product of their schemes of work they must begin by knowing pupil starting points and readiness for learning. Learning activities need to be pitched at the appropriate level so that all types of learners can be supported, extended, challenged to achieve their full potential and become independent learners. By improving pupil performance, we can develop pupil’s belief in their own competence and in turn their motivation to achieve.

At St. Joseph’s we see all teachers as SEND teachers. They work with our SEND co-ordinator (SENDCO), our pupils with SEND, and their parents to establish the appropriate level of material to support these pupils to make at least good progress. (See our SEN/SEND policy and information report, and statement of equality information.)

Character Education

Our character virtues of respect and responsibility, justice and compassion, confidence and resilience, honesty and self-belief, run through our curriculum and are designed to help children develop their sense of self and be ready to move with confidence onto their next chapter.

Fundamental British Values

The Fundamental British Values of,

run through our curriculum and are designed to help children understand what it is to be a British citizen in a modern and diverse Britain, and promote moral and cultural understanding to celebrate the diversity of the UK.

Curriculum: Impact

Children at St Joseph’s Catholic Academy, know that in knowledge lies opportunity and so, they value education and love learning. Learning is revisited and built upon to ensure a breadth and depth of understanding within and across curriculum subjects. Skills are improved over time and used as a means to access new knowledge.

Our bespoke curriculum has been designed to get the best out of each and every learner and provide them with opportunities that meet their needs. Children are resilient, hardworking and driven. They have been taught how to converse respectfully; how to value the responses offered by peers by celebrating ideas other than their own, and how to politely disagree, offering their own thoughts and ideas. They stretch their own thinking by asking questions of both their peers and themselves. The faith journey of each child is unique to them; therefore, our curriculum enables each child to determine their own personal understanding of spirituality; to value themselves and others; to develop social skills and understand society; to build a firm set of personal morals allowing them to engage in the culture they live in, and understand the diversity that life in Britain and the wider world around them, brings.

Children leave St Joseph’s as literate and numerate individuals, who have the skill set necessary to thrive at secondary school and beyond. We see this through talking with our children about their learning and what they can remember, the links our children make across subjects and years groups when they talk speak about their understanding of a concept, and in their wonderful work. The progress they make from their starting points with us and through their statutory assessment scores at the end of each key stage, equips them with the academic ability they need to move on and do very well. Children leave St Joseph’s with the confidence to try new things, not be afraid to make mistakes and see the opportunities that lie within adversity.

Our children know and understand their role in society; they have a sound sense of self and contribute positively to the both the Catholic community they belong, and to the wider community. They are tolerant and understand that everyone’s voice should be heard and everyone’s views should be acknowledged and respected. They leave primary school with an awareness of their responsibility as global citizens, a strong moral compass and understanding of what is right and wrong, and the character virtues of Justice and Compassion, Respect and Responsibility, Honesty and Self-Belief, and Confidence and Resilience, on which to further build. They have the aspiration to achieve in the next stage of their life, and a life story of experiences, awe, and wonder, which is only just the start for them…