Queniborough
Primary School
Curriculum Intent
Our theologically rooted Christian vision and our seven Christian Values – Belonging, , Love, Compassion, Friendship, Honesty, Peace and Respect underpin our curriculum intent and our shared purpose. Our whole school curriculum is robust and knowledge – rich. Key to all of our learning is a sense of ‘family’ enabled by strong relationships which form the foundations of our teaching and learning. At Queniborough CofE Primary School, our aim is for our pupils to become confident and competent individuals, who have a love of learning and thirst for knowledge. Our curriculum is ambitious for our children and enables them to learn in a structured way so that they know and remember more. We ensure that the full curriculum is taught to our pupils, which starts in the Early Years Foundation Stage.
We have used educational research to understand the ways that pupils learn so that we can build a curriculum that avoids cognitive overload and allows for pupils to make connections between their learning. This will help them to build strong schema in their brains so that new learning requires less effort and enables pupils to develop fluency and subject-specific knowledge and skills.
We strive for our curriculum to open up the world to our pupils and help them know about what life is like beyond the village of Queniborough. The curriculum enables our pupils to celebrate others and learn about key events from the past and present day. This will help pupils consider what they want for their own futures so that they live our school ready for secondary school and full of unique aspirations for their futures.
Implementation
How have we chosen what we want pupils to know in our curriculum?
At Queniborough CofE Primary School, we follow the National Curriculum to ensure that our pupils gain a broad and balanced education.
To support the implementation of the National Curriculum, we have adopted the CUSP curriculum for a number of our subjects. Other subjects also have links to published curricula, which we have evaluated to ensure they are of high quality. By using these resources, we have been able to carefully construct component knowledge so that it is planned sequentially. This enables pupils to build on prior learning and have opportunity to retrieve prior knowledge regularly so that learning is not lost.
We have chosen CUSP since:
CUSP is founded on the following principles, which is woven into every unit of learning and across all subjects:
This enables our pupils to become confident learners, who can articulate their learning well. By achieving this aim, our pupils can secure new knowledge in their long-term memory. This enables them to build connections between ideas in their learning.
What does a typical week look like for our pupils?
We believe that pupils need to have fluency in their reading, writing and maths skills. To ensure this is achieved, pupils will have daily Reading, Writing and Maths lessons. This starts in the EYFS, where children will learn phonics. Children will also receive a weekly lesson of RE, Computing, PSHE, Music, MFL and PE.
Other foundation subjects (Science, Geography, History, Art & Design, Design & Technology) are blocked over the half-term. This reduces the cognitive load on pupils so that they have less subject knowledge to remember each week.
What wider opportunities do we offer?
Forest School sessions are an important part of our curriculum for all of our pupils. We have two members of staff who are Forest School trained. Our pupils learn a range of personal skills that enhance their learning in other aspects of school life.
We offer an increasing range of clubs at Queniborough CE Primary School. Recently, we have offered Choir, Cooking Club, Quiet Club, Football Club, Netball Club and Eco Club.
We recognise how educational trips can enhance our pupil’s learning. Our curriculum includes a range of educational visits, including residential trips. We make the most of our local surroundings and regularly visit different areas of our village to enhance our learning.
How do we adapt our curriculum?
A range of adaptions are made to support pupils with their learning. Where possible, we ensure that these adaptations are subtle and enable all pupils to be fully included in the learning journey. Knowledge organisers and knowledge notes are adapted to reduce cognitive load so that pupils can attend to the most important bits of information. Scaffolds and additional resources are used to support pupils in lessons. Strong start lessons might also be used as pre-teaching material for those pupils who have gaps in their knowledge.
For pupils who require a modified curriculum, interventions will be used in a variety of ways
For more details on our curriculum maps and subject policies please contact the school as due to copyright limitations we cannot put them on our website.