Curriculum Overview

     Curriculum Intent

Every child is recognised as a unique, limitless individual. We celebrate and welcome differences within our school community. The ability to learn is underpinned by the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, concepts and values. We constantly provide bespoke teaching and learning opportunities to ensure that children fully understand learning intentions through engaging activities. We believe that primary school should be a happy, investigative and enquiring time in our lives where there are no limits to curiosity and there is a thirst for new experiences and knowledge. We promote positive attitudes to learning where mistakes are part of the process in order that children build resilience and confidence in learning and in life to ensure future success and reaching their full potential. 

Our curriculum is who we are, it is what makes our school special and it is our vehicle for maximising the potential of every single child that steps foot through our doors. Our school values are deeply embedded into the fabric of our school and we use them as the bedrock for all curriculum developments! 

Our curriculum non negotiables are:

• Use high-quality texts as the beating heart of everything we do, we develop a genuine love of reading so that our children read widely and often for information and pleasure.
• Deliberately, explicitly and systematically teach oracy to develop confidence and articulacy so that our children are empowered to succeed in life.
• Build cultural capital by using the vibrancy of Oldham and Manchester so that our children learn from and respect other cultures and appreciate what they have.
• Systematically teach and expose our children to vocabulary to foster a love of language in order to develop word consciousness across all curriculum areas.
• Enrich pupils time in school with memorable and unforgettable experiences, ensuring equity for all.
• Provide a safe and inclusive environment so that our children have no limits to what their ambitions are!

   Curriculum Implementation

We implement our values through three main curriculum drivers. These are: our Core Curriculum offer, our Broad and Balanced Curriculum offer and our Cultural Capital Curriculum offer. Implementation is successful because of strong subject leadership and subject knowledge, high-quality first teaching, timely and effective intervention and purposeful formative and summative assessment practices - used to meet the needs of all pupils. 

• Our Core Curriculum offer focuses on: Early Reading and Phonics, English, Mathematics and Science.
• Our Broad and Balanced Curriculum offer explores: the wider foundation subjects including History, Geography, Art and Design, Design Technology, Physical Education, Music, Modern Foreign Languages and Computing.
• Our Cultural Capital Curriculum offer draws together: PSHE, Relationship and Sex Education (RSE), Religious Education, SMSC and British Values. As part of our Cultural Capital, Wder Experiences curriculum we embed key health, wellbeing and safety messages so that our children are provided with the knowledge and skills to be physically and mentally healthy and safe in school and beyond the classroom. We promote key safety messages including: how to stay safe online, an awareness of child-on-child abuse and how to recognise the signs of positive and poor mental health.

Each curriculum area has been carefully crafted so that the learning opportunities, critical content, themes and key assessment milestones for each year group are known and understood. Our curriculum is suitably progressive and repetitive so that our pupils are taught the right critical content, at the right time, building upon what they already know and want to find out so that knowledge and skills are retained, embedded and transferred to long-term memory.

Our skilled subject leaders have developed subject specific characteristics which we expect the children to demonstrate in each discrete subject area. These characteristics underpin all work in these subjects, form a focal point for display areas and provide a common subject specific language for all stakeholders.

We have six school core values that permeate all aspects of school life at Crompton Primary School.  All core values are studied throughout assemblies every week and are woven through the curriculum. 

The vast majority of subjects are taught discretely but staff make meaningful links across subjects to deepen children’s learning. We encourage staff, where possible, to teach a weekly lesson for each of the foundation subjects and the core subject of Science. This helps to ensure sufficient time is allocated to each subject area.

Curriculum Impact

Subject leaders provide staff with year group specific and whole-school curriculum maps which identify what is to be taught and when it is to be taught. These progression maps illustrate how our critical content and themes, for each subject area, are carefully woven to ensure suitable progression and repetition. Short-term plans are produced on a daily and weekly basis to set out the critical content for each lesson, identifying engaging activities, resources, high-quality texts and formative assessment opportunities which will be used to secure the intended learning outcomes. 

We use formative assessment information every day, in every lesson. On-going assessments lead to action to provide immediate feedback or identify if individuals or groups need to revisit, consolidate or move on. Staff use this information to inform their short-term planning and interventions - including in the foundation subjects. This enables us to provide the best possible support for all our pupils, including pupils with SEND and the most able.

Our Curriculum Lead has established an assessment framework to help support staff gather vital assessment information, at the right time, throughout topics. This framework includes using timely pre assessment quizzes to assess prior learning. These help to inform short-term planning and short-term interventions so that that the intended knowledge or ‘critical content’ is retained before moving on. Our purposeful formative assessments also help inform summative judgements for each child in each topic in every subject area. All topics end with post assessment quizzes, activities and extended writing tasks. Summative judgements are made against established assessment milestones. 

Staff use the following criteria: working towards the standard, at the expected standard and working a great depth for each child which are then analysed by our Senior and Subject Leaders and suitable curriculum adaptations and/or interventions made.

A robust cycle of monitoring is set out at the start of the academic year and developed in collaboration with teaching staff to address any necessary workload issues and promote transparency. Monitoring takes several different forms but often includes: book scrutinies, lesson observations and/or learning walks, pupil/parent and/or staff voice.

Pupil progress reviews are conducted half termly (formative) and termly (summative). This process provides the SLT, Governors and Subject Leaders with an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the quality of education in our school.

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