Harbour Curriculum
Intent
At Harbour Primary School, we are passionate about children achieving their best, both academically and personally, enhancing their learning through our bespoke curriculum. Our curriculum has been mapped out to ensure progression in learning from Nursery to Year Six and is underpinned by high expectations of teaching and learning across all subjects.
Promotion of our children’s personal development is a golden thread that lies at the heart of our curriculum. Our subject leaders have carefully considered how fusing SMSC (Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural) and the fundamental British values into all aspects of our curriculum and school life will enhance and shape our children’s future aspirations and their future relationships. Our curriculum aims to strengthen their understanding of equality, diversity and inclusion through the learning opportunities we provide - our regular school assemblies, planned event days, school council and all our interactions with our children contribute towards them becoming well rounded people and citizens of the school, local, national and global communities to which they belong. Learning about keeping safe and healthy - both physically and mentally - constitute a key part of all learning within all aspects of our school curriculum - there are also no missed opportunities with regards to any incidental learning around safety and wellbeing.
Our subject leaders have identified the fundamental skills and knowledge that our children must acquire and apply within different contexts now and in the future - ensuring clarity on ‘sticky knowledge and skills’ enabling our teachers to plan learning experiences which lead to our children to ‘know more’ and ‘remember more’
We have a high focus on developing fluency and mastery in Reading, Writing and Maths - our full curriculum provides opportunities for children to apply their knowledge and skills in a variety of ways. We have a particular emphasis on developing children to be confident readers and confident communicators; all curriculum subjects promote further opportunities for reading from Nursery to Year 6.
All learning has been carefully mapped out to ensure coverage and progression across all subjects. With the aim of broadening our children’s experiences, our teachers have further enhanced their year group curriculum offer with hands-on learning opportunities such as school trips, inviting visitors to our school or planning themed days for full immersion within an area of learning.
As part of our curriculum, we have ensured that our children also benefit from specialist subject teachers to develop their knowledge and skills and appreciate the positive contributions these subjects can make to their personal development. (Music, Physical Education, Forest School and French in Key Stage 2)
Our children have a very positive pupil voice about being taught these lessons by specialist teachers. Developing confidence and resilience and learning from mistakes when building new skills are key areas we actively promote in all aspects of our school life at Harbour. For example, our PE coach incorporates reading extracts from biographies of inspirational sportspeople into his lessons. This has helped children think more positively about themselves and their abilities. Our Music teacher runs weekly choir sessions - research has shown that singing in a choir reduces the stress hormone cortisol and boosts confidence and a sense of strengthened togetherness.
Our devotion to nurturing our children’s talents, aspirations and enthusiasm is at the core of all decisions we make with regards to curriculum and any additional learning experiences we plan.
Implementation
Prior learning and knowledge will be carefully embedded into teaching sequences. This will be scaffolded to support children to recall previous learning and make connections between prior and new learning. We promote opportunities for children to practise previous learning through a variety of methods: low stake quizzes, dual coding mind maps and key vocabulary prompts.
Staff will model explicitly the subject specific knowledge, vocabulary and skills relevant to the learning to allow pupils to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts.
Pre-Learning and Over-Learning opportunities are vital parts of our school day. Children move fluidly between groups for further support with regards to boosting confidence, addressing misconceptions and just simply needing more practice - our learning motto, ‘Practice Makes Permanent’ is a key driver of additional learning opportunities we make available for all our children.
We fully endorse the concept of engaging our children in deep and meaningful learning experiences. Our teachers are fully committed to adapting their curriculum in line with the needs of their children and the current DfE guidance. We understand that achieving depth is not the same as ‘greater depth’, and it is crucial that the necessary adaptations are made to the curriculum in order for all children to achieve depth at their appropriate levels. Learning is supported through the use of the learning environment that provides children with scaffolding that supports them to retain new facts and vocabulary in their long-term memory. All classrooms use working walls to capture knowledge, steps for success, vocabulary and key questions to scaffold learners to work towards independence.
New learning is regularly checked through effective Assessment for Learning strategies such as questioning for understanding, checking for misconceptions and giving direct and appropriate feedback. This moves children from supported practice to independence at the correct pace for them, ensuring all children are challenged.
Language development within all curriculum subjects bears great emphasis in all we do at Harbour. We give our children plenty opportunity to rehearse their sentences; we provide them with stem sentences and useful terminology; and our staff model this at every available opportunity. Becoming effective communicators is one of our aspirations for our children. We strongly believe that embedding discussion, explanation and expression in learning will in turn yield deeper understanding and more likely help transfer any new learning into long term memory.
Impact
Our pledge to all children at Harbour is from their different starting points, they will make at least good progress and achieve their academic and personal potential.
In particular, we aim for all children to become competent and efficient readers, which is a fundamental basis for any future learning, so that they can are ready for secondary school and beyond.
Our learning emphasis on developing skills within Mathematics and crucially being ‘numerate’ will mean that our children will be able to engage in a variety of career opportunities including STEM, Geography, Art and DT. By promoting cross curricular links across subjects, we aim to unlock children’s potential, eradicate any prejudice towards a particular subject and help children see themselves as the scientists, mathematicians, artists, geographers of the future. Ultimately, we want all children to achieve their dreams.
Children will have strong communication skills, both written and verbal, and understand the importance of respecting the views of others. They will take pride in everything that they do and are always striving to do their best. Children will have positive attitudes to learning and understand and use the key skills they need to be an effective learner, including persevering when they encounter challenge. They will demonstrate our school values (kindness, respect, honesty, curiosity and resilience) and understand why these are important. All children will be ready for the next stage of their learning.
Our curriculum impact can also be measured by our summative outcomes. By the time our children reach the end of their school journey with us, they make at least good progress from their individual starting points. Our KS2 data reflects this below:
Please note that Greater Depth results are in blue.
Our Curriculum Develops Cultural Capital
At Harbour, we aim to educate the whole child through wider opportunities and experiences. We are a true community school and as such, we encourage and support all children to learn and play together and treat each other with dignity and respect. We help children learn from their mistakes and take responsibility for their actions. Ultimately, at Harbour, we want our children to be safe, happy and learning a rich, wide and varied curriculum with lots of meaningful, engaging learning experiences.
Cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviours, and skills that a child can draw upon and which demonstrates their cultural awareness, knowledge and competence; it is one of the key ingredients a pupil will draw upon to be successful in society, their career and the world of work.
We have captured some of the experiences our children will have during their Harbour journey:
