Whitley And Eggborough Community Primary School

Whitley and Eggborough CP School Mission Curriculum.

Curriculum Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement

Intent 

At WECPS we are very proud of our broad and balanced “Mission ” curriculum that allows all the children at our school to learn in an engaging, exciting and empowering way that will enable them to:

• Understand the world they live in from both a local and wider world perspective
• Apply taught skills and knowledge to real life situations and problems, based around current affairs and prior learning
• Develop their interpersonal skills by directing their own learning and through focused team work
• Build personal resilience through their independent learning

“Mission” is taught through ambitious curriculum based around the concept of independent learning being enabled by the teacher who will provide the opportunities to develop skills and knowledge in order for all the children to “solve” the mission and have the “cultural capital” to succeed in life and to uphold our recognised British Values.  "Mission" should be thought of the as the process of the children  the being encouraged to fulfill their learning by considering a number of essential elements over the year during each mission: questioning, innovation, research, environment, sustainability, community involvement, lifestyle and presentation.  Teachers will check learners’, prior knowledge and ongoing understanding systematically.  They will identify misconceptions accurately and will provide clear and concise feedback to enable improvements and development for the next steps of learning.

Each half term the teachers select  a “Mission” Challenges that progressively builds on prior learning and support both the requirements of the National Curriculum across a two year rolling plan, as well as looking at what is pertinent and important to “OUR SCHOOL COMMUNITY”.  Teaching and planning is designed to help learners remember content from their long term memory and integrate new knowledge into new concepts.  Whilst the curriculum coverage is taught to fulfill the discreet requirements the purpose of the "Mission" is to ensure that the children are enabled (where appropriate) to make connections with all the subject areas taught, rather than seeing them as disconnected.

At WECPS we recognise each child as a unique individual.  We celebrate and welcome differences within our diverse school community.   Each year we review the needs of our children and use information from completed surveys including the Growing up in North Yorkshire and Academic Resilience to ensure that our school curriculum is steered towards fulfilling these needs.  For example Pupils arrive in early years with lower literacy levels and only 29% of KS1 pupils in the GUNY survey say that their parents/carers read them a bedtime story.  Whilst a much higher percentage state that they are allowed to use technology on their return from school and directly before and after they have gone to bed.   

Two key foci of our curriculum are therefore on engagement with reading and involving the wider family as well as teaching children to fully embrace the awe and wonder of the outdoors with confidence through our weekly “Whitley Woodland Project” across the whole school!

 Implementation

The ability to learn is underpinned by the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, concepts and values with a vision to prepare them for life beyond primary school.  We provide enrichment opportunities to engage their learning.  We firmly believe that childhood should be a happy, investigative and enquiring time, where there are no limits to exploring curiosity.  We actively encourage the thirst and drive for new knowledge and experiences which provide purpose and relevance in the lives of all our learners. 

We use our CHAS values of Caring, Helping and Sharing to promote positive attitudes to learning which reflect the values and skills needed to promote and inspire responsibility for learning and future success.

Involvement from the community is an important and integral part of our curriculum and we regularly invite parents and visitors to share and facilitate new learning skills by sharing experiences such as learning workshops, assemblies, performances, curriculum outcomes and community events.

We strive to ensure that all children who leave WECPS have a strong sense of belonging to a close “family” community where they demonstrate the confidence and skills to

• make decisions,
• self-evaluate and
• become lifelong learners.

Underpinning “Mission” is a solid foundation of learning reading, writing, communication and maths skills whose application can clearly be seen throughout the mission learning.  Reading is considered a priority at WECPS as we believe that it is the "key to all doors" later on in a child's life.   We try to encourage and develop a love of reading for all our children across all ages.

The statutory PSHE curriculum is fully integrated throughout the whole school curriculum to address the increasing SEMH needs and requirements of our school community.

We also embrace and encourage the children to engage fully in an active lifestyle by including a good range of competitive sport and physical activity for all classes throughout the week both during and after school.  Our DT curriculum also supports learning around a healthy eating regime to combine with the activity to develop a “Healthy and Balanced Lifestyle!”

Impact

The curriculum success criteria is based both on learners developing detailed knowledge and skills as well as the success criteria set by the children that allows them to identify skills needed to complete the mission.  Impact of the curriculum will be measured through a range of methods including peer observations, criteria assessment, book observations, pupil voice and teacher moderation (both internal and external).

Throughout the year our committed subject leaders are responsible for collating the evidence to show full curriculum coverage and curriculum progression as well as identifying attainment and next steps of all the children.  Subject leaders will review and report to the SLT on achievements, progress and developments for their areas of the curriculum.

At WECPS we will review and evaluate the impact of the taught curriculum content each year at to ensure that it meets the needs of our individual community as well as ensuring coverage and progression for all our children.