Our Curriculum
Curriculum Intent, Implementation and Impact
Aims and Principles:
The overarching aim of the Harris Federation is to end the cycle of poverty and disadvantage: to improve the life chances for all students, their families and the community in which they live. We begin with the principle that all children are equal and there is, therefore, equality of entitlement to knowledge for each of our pupils.
At Harris Primary Academy Mayflower our curriculum aim is to develop learners who are knowledgeable, confident and enthusiastic and can make links with the world around them. Our Core Values of Community, Responsibility, Achievement, Perseverance and Manners run are interwoven throughout.
Whatever a child's background or starting point, the leadership team and staff at Mayflower are ambitious for all pupils and aim to ensure they finish Year 6 with the academic skills, social skills and knowledge in order to thrive. We recognise and value each child's individual personality and work to develop their self-confidence and self-esteem.
Our Curriculum Intent- What is our curriculum trying to achieve?
At Harris Primary Mayflower, our curriculum has 6 key intentions:
1) To equip pupils with rich knowledge across a range of subjects that they are able to use confidently. Pupils will build strong foundations of knowledge (schemata) through organising knowledge, making connections and anchoring the new knowledge.
2) To secure concepts in English and Maths in early phases as we believe that this acts as a gateway to acquiring core knowledge across a range of subjects.
3) To ensure children have the opportunity to immerse themselves in a range of texts, developing a ‘love of reading’ and becoming confident and fluent readers.
4) To ensure that pupils have an enriched and ambitious vocabulary and that through understanding meaning clearly, they are able to confidently use this vocabulary in their work.
5) To ensure that pupils embrace diversity and understand clearly the British Values through our Core Value of Community.
6) To maintain curiosity and creativity through providing a wide range of hands-on and practical experiences for pupils to ensure that they can make sense of their learning.
7) To ensure that pupils are well prepared for the transition from EYFS to KS1, KS1 to KS2 and KS2 to KS3.
Our Curriculum Implementation-
Reading is at the heart of the curriculum at Mayflower and we believe strongly that the ability to read unlocks the world for our pupils.
Our Curriculum has been developed to deliver our Core Values of Community, Responsibility, Achievement, Perseverance and Manners as we believe they are the essential key drivers to ensure all pupils achieve their full potential academically and emotionally.
In English, teaching is linked to a high quality text which are specifically chosen to inspire their writing. Vocabulary, spelling and grammar are taught discreetly. Each lesson, pupils learn the rich meanings of 4-5 new words through role-play and discussion.
To ensure the children are confident and assured mathematicians we use the maths mastery approach. This means pupils are constantly working to develop their understanding, skills and knowledge, rather than achieving certain criteria and subsequently moved on. Our mastery approach emphasises achievement and challenge for all. Children are supported to achieve their full potential and encouraged to link mathematical understanding to further develop their knowledge throughout lessons ensuring that they become fluent with these skills. An emphasis on depth of understanding is central to our curriculum.
As a Read, Write, Inc. Model School we teach 1 hour of phonics a day and pupils follow up their learning by taking home a book that matches the sound they have learned. Any pupil that needs extra support in Phonics receives a daily 1:1 tuition session. Once pupils have completed the phonics programme (off-scheme), they are taught reading comprehension skills as well as how to further analyse, research and evaluate using texts.
The curriculum is our progression model however teachers use different approaches within the classroom to scaffold and challenge, ensuring that the needs of all our pupils are met.
Subjects are taught discreetly over a period of one week so that pupils are able build on a sequence of knowledge within each subject. Each subject has a subject and unit overview where learning is broken down and running in parallel to this is a progression in disciplinary skills so that children develop a deep understanding of how the subject works
Learning is mapped from Years 1 to 6 and pupils build their knowledge of the big ideas, systematically and cumulatively. Knowledge Organisers are shared at the beginning of each unit and detail the specific knowledge that pupils will learn and the related vocabulary.
Within each lesson pupils learn the rich meanings of 4-5 new words through role-play and discussion.
Subjects such as P.E (Dance and Games) and Mandarin are taught by subject specialists with class teachers present during the lesson to continue to build specialist subject knowledge and to enable the teachers to support assessment of learning.
Our Curriculum Impact-
In our academy, we believe that our curriculum makes a profound and positive impact to the outcomes of every child. The structure of our curriculum enables us to return to the powerful knowledge and skills pupils should have mastered at regular intervals across the year and key stages.
At Harris Primary Academy Mayflower we track progress and achievement to ensure that children make rapid progress. We use a balance of formative and summative assessments to review progress and include gap analysis tasks to support planning and as part of our review of the curriculum. A large part of our monitoring of impact comes through pupil voice work and the ability of our pupils to talk about their learning.
At the start of each lesson, pupils answer retrieval questions through the ‘Knowing More, Remembering More’ starter stickers to ensure that they have remembered previous learning before the new lesson begins. At the end of each unit of work pupils answer assessment questions through a subject quiz and knowledge gleaned from this is used by teachers to further close any gaps in knowledge.
Each week the academy leads a ‘Week in Learning’ session where the curriculum leaders speak to a range of pupils from across the academy about their learning and these sessions show that our pupils have a deep knowledge across the curriculum.
Read, Write, Inc Phonic assessments are completed half termly and assessment information is then used to re-group pupils swiftly and to target interventions.
In Years 1-6 there are two assessment points for Reading, Writing and Maths where the academy uses the Rising Star assessments and ‘No More Marking’ writing assessments to measure pupil outcomes. These are used by teachers and leaders within Pupil Progress Review Meetings to target teaching and intervention across the academy.
Pupils who are vulnerable nationally to low achievement, such as pupils eligible for Pupil Premium finding and white British pupils, are monitored carefully to ensure that we continue to close any gaps.
Ensuring Equality and Inclusion at Harris Primary Academy Mayflower
Harris Primary Academy Mayflower welcomes all children and values them as individuals, treating them equally and with respect. We believe that all children have the right to have their own needs incorporated into their curriculum in order to achieve success through the following approaches;
Provide an accessible environment, which is secure and safe, so that all our children can flourish.
We believe that all teachers are teachers of children with special educational needs and it is therefore a whole school responsibility to ensure that these children’s needs are addressed.
Through staff working together as a team, and in partnership with pupils and their parents and carers, we strive to ensure that our aims are met.
Ensure all staff are aware of anti-discriminatory practice, promoting and valuing equality and diversity.
Promote early identification of children with additional needs to ensure interventions are in place to address their needs.
Monitor the progress of all our children to ensure they are meeting their full potential.
Work with all external agencies and organisations
To build relationships with other schools within our community including specialist and out-with Harris Federation.
We ensure that our curriculum is fully inclusive and will not discriminate against the protected characteristics: age, disability, gender, gender identity, race, religion or belief and sexual orientation.
Our inclusive teaching approach ensures that all children can access the learning using resources and strategies that they may need, including modified language, additional support or resource.
Follow the guidance in the SEN Code of Practice, Equalities Act 2010 and The Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014
Further information can be found in our 'Equalities and Additional Intervention' section which includes our:
SEND Information Report
Accessability Plan
SEND Policy
If you would like to know more about our Curriuclum, please contact the academy on 0203 772 4588.
Mr Steven Kimberley
Assistant Principal and Curriculum Leader
