Overview
Our Curriculum statement below explains the principles or ‘drivers’ which determine our approach to the curriculum.
Further detail of the curriculum can be found on the drop-down menu below. For further information about our curriculum, please contact the school office [0161-624-1133].
What we wish for our curriculum [Intent]:
At Mills Hill Primary School, the curriculum is specifically designed to meet the interests of our children. We offer our children the best educational experience possible in order to prepare them fully for the lives they are going to lead. All young people are individuals and our curriculum recognises this. We want our curriculum to be exciting, interesting, innovative and engaging so that children are curious, inspired and enjoy learning. We believe the curriculum we offer should ignite children’s imagination and be challenging, yet enable all children to feel success, no matter what their ability or interests. We promote self-belief and self-confidence in our children and provide opportunities for children to develop their full potential.
Our curriculum is designed to provide a rich and varied programme of activities and learning experiences to meet the needs, interests and aspirations of all learners both within and beyond the school day. It is underpinned by a clear whole school vision within our Mission Statement and a set of curriculum drivers. Our drivers are areas that we value as a school; they give focus to learning opportunities and are embedded throughout teaching and learning, developing the child as a whole.
Mills Hill Primary School has identified three key curriculum drivers;-
- Aspire
- Care
- Enquire.
Our curriculum extends beyond the formal requirement of the National Curriculum and we recognise that this is only part of what our children require. We have high regard for the values, skills and abilities we feel our children will require in order to take their place in the world, enabling them to be compassionate and driven leaders of our future.
At Mills Hill Primary School, the needs of the children determine the emphasis of our curriculum. We are committed to developing the best possible learning opportunities for all our children. We believe in first identifying the children’s needs, giving learning a sound educational purpose, and then creating imaginative and engaging learning opportunities to accomplish this. We encourage active learning through exploration, enquiry, investigation and structured play using first hand experiences wherever possible. We provide a range of opportunities for children to develop, use and refine key knowledge, understanding and skills, and to practise and apply them regularly in different contexts.
We believe that it is important that our children have a strong awareness of their community and locality, of whom they are and where they fit in the world. We believe that successful learning depends on a positive partnership between home, school and the wider community. A key feature of our work within our community is our links to class charities and to enterprise fund-raising initiatives. Through our “Enquiring Minds and Caring Hearts” curriculum, children learn to accept and respect others’ abilities, skills and backgrounds
Our curriculum aims to make learning come to life, to engage and inspire the minds of children, and offer children a love of learning that will last a lifetime. Ultimately, as their learning journey at Mills Hill comes to a close, our children will leave with a genuine ‘Enquiring Mind’ and ’Caring Heart.’ These skills and qualities will not only support them in becoming a lifelong learner, full of curiosity, determination and purpose, but most importantly, will support them in becoming kind and compassionate citizens of the world.
How we deliver our curriculum [Implementation]:
Purpose:
‘Teaching that Impacts’ is the core policy of the school and informs best classroom practice.
It enables all children to make progress in every lesson taught.
Aims:
- Ensure our children develop an enquiring mind and a caring heart
- Raise the quality of learning and as a result improve standards
- Provide clear guidance for teaching and learning ensuring consistency across the school
- Enable the teaching team to identify aspects of practice as part of their commitment to continual improvement
- Provide a tool for monitoring, evaluation, school improvement and accountability
- Set out our expectations of best practice
Structuring and delivery of learning during whole class or group adult led sessions:
Mills Hill Primary School’s teaching strategy implements lessons in which the responsibility for knowing and being able to do is gradually released from the teacher to the learner.
It means beginning with the ‘I’ step where the adult models the process or delivers key information they want the learner to learn as directly as possible, then walking the learner through examples. The adult verbalises the learning process what to do and potential errors to avoid
In the ‘We’ step the adult first asks for help from the learners and gradually allows the learners to explore collaboratively. This enables the learners to explore and discuss the learning within a safe and supportive peer to peer collaborative context.
Finally in the ‘You’ step the adult provides the learner with the opportunity to practice doing the learning on their own, giving them multiple opportunities to practice.
I / WE /YOU: Key elements
The learning begins outside. Readiness for learning starts in the play ground when children, line up quietly and focus on moving quietly into their classroom. An effective entry routine is critical in affecting readiness for learning and adults will establish and give time to practise to ensure entry routine becomes an efficient habit.
Children should never ask themselves ‘What am I supposed to be doing’ when they enter the classroom. Entry routine should establish a lesson starter of ‘Do Now’
‘Do Now’ is a short activity waiting for children to complete on entering the room, often this will link with prior learning undertaken.
This could be presented in different forms: A question to be discussed with your partner, a calculation to do on a white board, a picture to look at and consider 5 possible wow words, a piece of music to listen to, a sentence to write given key words for inclusions, a number of objects to count out or draw etc.
As well as providing an opportunity to re visit prior learning the ‘Do Now’ can also act as the hook to new learning.
Learning Intention: In bringing focus to the learning the adult will share with children the Learning Intention for the session. It is important that prior to the lesson the adult gives appropriate consideration as to what makes a learning intention useful and effective. Across the school, the 4 Ms criteria should be used to support effective learning intentions.
‘Steps to Success’ Is where the adult provides the children with specific steps by which to work or solve problems. The adult acts as a coach providing the steps to achieve success in the learning.
The ‘steps to Success’ are the recipe to attain successful learning. The children learn the steps, refer to the map they provide as they develop their competence and then leave the steps behind when they are familiar enough with the recipe to forget they are following it. The adults use of steps to success help children to learn complex skills by breaking them down into manageable steps.
‘Modelling’ Teacher modelling is a key aspect of the ‘I’ step of a lesson. This could be the teacher modelling reading, writing, counting, problem solving, editing, questioning etc. Modelling is crucial in closing the gap between what the children currently know and do, and what we want them to know and be able to do. Modelling and scaffolding are crucial for effective progress. However, over modelling and scaffolding does not enable children to develop their thinking fully. Adults will ensure that there is a balance between the space and time given to each of the steps: I/WE/YOU
Structures for engagement: Maintaining engagement during the ‘I’ step is critical and the adult will draw on a range of techniques. Adults may chuck the direct adult input with children writing notes, adding key words into a adult prepared note taking sheet, practice a letter formation on a white board, copy a layout of a calculation into their book, respond to questions from the adult etc. In addition the adult may also use structures for engagement. The use of structure for engagement within this step should be limited and not distract from the teacher modelling and scaffolding the learning. Structured used will tend to focused on paired rather than group structures- Rally Robin, Time-Pair –Share etc
Circulate: Moving around your room during all steps of the lesson is important and should be part of the ‘I ‘step. This also improves children’s engagement with the learning In observing the ‘I’ step adults tend to occupy the space immediately in front of the board or adults seat. It is important to break out of this space within the first 5 minutes. The adult in so doing makes it clear that the room is there as well as the children’s. As the adult circulates they need to work the room engaging with children, verbally and nonverbally.
Working Walls: During the ‘I’ step the adult will develop the content of the working wall. Working walls support children’s learning through modelling of the steps to success and provides a scaffold support for the children. By definition working walls are, by definition, work in progress.
One of the best ways for children to develop their understanding is for the learning to be broken down into its component parts which they explore step by step, building confidence and understanding. This understanding further enhanced where active engagement with others occurs.
Structures for engagement: In replaying the steps to success the adult provide a safe, peer to peer collaborative learning experience through the use of structures for engagement which builds the foundation for the children to undertake the solo activity.
The goal of the ‘We’ step is to push more and more of the cognitive work to the children. The adult determining when and whether the children are ready for more responsibility and when they need material presented again.
Circulate: Moving around the room during the ‘we’ step of the lesson is a key tool in formative assessment. Through ongoing assessment, where children are exploring the learning with their peers the adult is able to judge the level of understanding and thus the further challenge or support required.
Working Walls: Both adult and children will make reference to working walls during this step, add additional information and notes.
Questioning: Every lesson will be characterised by skilful questioning at all steps but particularly central to the ‘We’ step. Questions will be planned for, and include different types that require different response and challenge from children
- Knowledge: to tell, list, state name, describe…
- Comprehension: to explain, predict, compare, discuss, describe…
- Synthesis: to plan, design, imagine, create….
- Evaluation: to choose, discus, decide, select, prioritise…
- Application: to illustrate, show, solve, use, examine
- Analysis: to explain, investigate, compare, and contrast
No hands up: What happens when we ask a question? –Some children raise their hands- the 80% who don’t raise their hands have lower levels of engagement and expectation. Therefore in selecting children to respond to questions adults should for the majority of instances use random selection making use of the Kagan selector or by ‘Lollipop stick’ selection. The question should always be asked first prior to selecting a name. Children putting their hand up to answer a question should be a extremely rare occurrence.
No Opt Out: A sequence where a child is unable to answer a question should end with the child answering that question correctly as often as possible. It is important that adults maintain high expectations that opting out- I don’t know- is not an option and where a child is genuinely trying to answer are support to provide a correct answer.
In its simplest form, the adult selects a child to answer a question , the child is unable to provide the correct answer, the adult (or a child selected by the adult) provide a clue to the child, if still unable to answer adult provides answer and asks child to restate.
Repetition matters. Children need to practice over and over. Some will learn the skill for good on the third time they do it right; some will learn on the tenth time. Very few children will learn it on the first or second time.
Assessment: The ‘you’ step allows children the time to practice the learning usually on their own. There isn’t an expectation that they will get it totally correct but they will be supported in this practice by the adults in the classroom. Ongoing assessment by adults as they circulate the room is central to this stage in allowing the adult to identify those needing additional support and direct teaching. By the end of this solo, independent practice children should be able to complete the learning task/ activity/ question entirely on their own.
Feedback: The adult providing children feedback on their learning, where they are, what they are doing well and what they need to focus to further improve provides a significant lever in raising standards. This process of ongoing’ live’ feedback through verbal comments and written notes on children’s learning is the key role of the adult at this stage of the lesson.
Challenge: The adult needs to also grab the opportunity for enrichment and differentiation. Some learners will demonstrate mastery faster than others so the adult needs to be sure to have extension learning materials’ to push them to the next level.
How we judge our curriculum [Impact]:
We consider our aspire, care and enquire curriculum to be the foundation stones of all our work and consequently we regularly assess how children are doing in developing these key skills. This is of as equal importance to us as our assessments in the formal curriculum of reading, writing and maths. Over recent months, school has been identifying what aspire, care and enquire might look like at various stages of a child’s development and we have developed the following criteria against which our children are regularly assessed. Click here to access our EMCH criteria.
Click here to see our feedback policy.
