Curriculum

Our Curriculum Rationale

At Oswald Road Primary, we value a knowledge rich curriculum underpinned within a carefully planned and sequenced framework to enable cumulative knowledge and effective learning. The curriculum is rooted in a strong belief of equality for all pupils, therefore the approach is successfully designed to be ambitious – ensuring that pupils with SEND and those who are disadvantaged apply what they know and can do with increasing fluency and therefore gain confidence in learning.

Our curriculum ensures excellent coverage of the National Curriculum (Years 1-6) and Foundation Stage Early Years Curriculum (Nursery and Reception Children).  We have fully embraced the higher expectations set out in both curricula and have devised our own units of work for most subjects  so that we can ensure a sound progression of learning. Where we follow a scheme, they are well-chosen and subject leads clearly understand the rationale for their choice.  We also have a core team of specialist teachers who are passionate about their curriculum area. Our curriculum is broad and balanced and offers a wide range of curricular activities involving visits out of school and visitors to school to enhance learning and extend pupils’ cultural capital.

Our Curriculum Intent

Our curriculum for excellence at Oswald Road Primary is primarily focused upon ensuring that pupils are supported and challenged to gain knowledge, skills and attributes to ensure that they are ready for their next stage of education. Ultimately, we recognise that we are preparing our pupils for lifelong learning and effective contribution to the diverse community in which we live. 

Oswald Road teaches a curriculum through a subject specific approach to learning, making links across subjects where they naturally occur. Research always underpins the curriculum planning stage to ensure that this informs curriculum provision. Acknowledgement of short and long-term memory capacity as well as cognition overload features strongly in the planning and provision stages of our curriculum.

At Oswald Road we are: skilled readers, confident writers, mathematicians, scientists, historians, geographers, musicians, artists, linguists, theologists, athletes, designers and technologists, inclusive and diverse. We want our children to have no limits to what their ambitions are and want them to embody our core values.

The purpose of our curriculum is to:

• Produce successful learners who can communicate effectively.
• Develop confident learners who are resilient to failure.
• Promote responsible and effective contributors to society.
• Encourage principled, reflective empathetic individuals.

In developing our school curriculum, we acknowledged the uniqueness of our school within the context of its demographic. This has framed the choices of the curriculum content we have made particularly in aspects of the curriculum such as Geography and History.

We enrich their time in our school with memorable, unforgettable experiences and provide opportunities which are normally out of reach. We firmly believe that it is not just about what happens in the classroom, it is about the added value and cultural capital we offer to really inspire our children.

In order to produce effective communicators, there is a focus on pupil collaboration. This is a priority and therefore we provide many opportunities throughout the curriculum to discuss moralistic issues – this ensures that pupils are encouraged to share their views but also are able to listen and respect the views of others within a regulated curriculum context.

We plan with the end points of learning at the forefront of curriculum design. Every subject has clearly defined end points of learning for key stages, year groups and individual lessons. This enables clarity of assessment for learning and determines a framework for leaders to measure curriculum performance.

Reading is a key priority within the school curriculum. There is an acknowledgement that in order to access any area of the curriculum successfully and independently reading has to be a well-developed area of learning for the pupil. We seek to develop fluency, vocabulary and a love of reading within this school.

Our vision is for children to leave our school as young people who are:

• Happy
• Respectful
• Inspired to learn
• Independent 
• Aspirational
• Creative
• Self-confident
• Resilient 
• Compassionate 
• Well rounded

We are confident that our curriculum supports this vision for our children.

Our Curriculum Implementation

At Oswald Road, we provide a unique curriculum based on the National Curriculum. Our curriculum has been carefully built and the learning opportunities and assessment end points for each year group crafted to ensure progression and repetition in terms of embedding key learning, knowledge and skills. Subject leaders have developed subject specific characteristics, which we expect the children to demonstrate in each discrete subject area. We are also a UNICEF Rights Respecting School. We embed these rights into all subjects, and provide a common ‘rights respecting’ specific vocabulary for staff and pupils.  Weekly themes, based on our UNICEF rights, also form the focus for our assemblies. 

We have developed year group specific long-term curriculum maps, which identify when the different subjects will be taught across the academic year. The vast majority of subjects are taught discretely but staff make meaningful links across subjects to deepen children’s learning.

Curriculum provision ensures that learning is embedded within the pupils’ long-term memory and this is achieved through regular reviews of learning in all subject areas.

Misconceptions are addressed where possible at the point of learning – direct feedback by the teacher to the pupil ensures that misconceptions are addressed to enable the learner to redirect their thoughts thereby clarifying any misunderstandings.

Teachers have excellent knowledge of the subjects they teach and this is supported through sequential schemes of work, which have been carefully designed to build on pupils’ prior learning. Subject leaders provide any additional support required in relation to their subject specialism. 

Our Curriculum Impact

We know when our curriculum provision has been successful because this will lead to excellent outcomes by all of our pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND. This will equally assure that pupils are ready for their next stage of learning.

Assessments are made for all pupils three times a year, although ongoing formative assessment supports learners throughout their teaching and learning cycle. End points are instrumental in knowing whether pupils have been successful. We aim for our pupils to recall learning with fluidity and automaticity when this is required, such as multiplication tables and phonics.

We use both formative and summative assessment information. Staff use this information to inform their short-term planning and short-term interventions – including in the foundation subjects. This helps us provide the best possible support for all of our pupils, including the more able. Subject leaders have mapped out the assessment milestones for each phase and further broken these objectives down for each year group in each subject area.

Assessment information is analysed by Subject Leads, the Assessment Lead and Headteacher as part of our monitoring cycle. Pupil progress reviews are conducted termly. This process provides the SLT and Governors with an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the quality of education in our school.

We set out our monitoring cycle at the beginning of each academic year. This identifies when monitoring for all year groups is undertaken in all subject areas. Monitoring includes: book scrutiny, lesson observations and/or learning walks, pupil/parent and/or staff voice.

All of this information is gathered and reviewed. It is used to inform further curriculum developments and provision is adapted accordingly.

Where the reading curriculum has been successful, pupils will read for pleasure engaging in a wide range of reading material. They will have a high level of fluency, comprehension and evaluative reading ability.

When measuring curriculum performance, we also revisit the aims of the curriculum as a further reference for success measures:

The purpose of our curriculum is to:

• Produce successful learners who can communicate effectively.
• Develop confident learners who are resilient to failure.
• Promote responsible and effective contributors to society.
• Encourage principled, reflective empathetic individuals.