At St Mary’s CIW VA School together we dream, aspire and achieve through love and faith as one big family. We foster and create a caring, learning environment for our pupils to be ambitious, confident and independent citizens of Wales and the wider World. We asked our school and wider community what words they would use to describe our school and what makes us special. These are the key words which were chosen and therefore encompass our shared vision:
Respectful, Welcoming, Inclusive, Happy, Fun, Supportive, Kind, Family and Holistic
Designing our curriculum
Phase One – Principles and purpose. We began by ensuring everyone has a good understanding of the requirements of the new curriculum.
We listened to all stakeholders and are working together to create a curriculum that we feel best meets the needs of our learners and community. Together we have revisited our vision and values to ensure they form the basis of everything we do.
Phase Two – Entitlement and enhancement.
We considered our values and ethos, what makes us special and what we do best. From there we can ensure we build on success and continue to offer the children a wide range of learning experiences inside and outside the classroom, included in this is are our mandatory requirements.
Phase Three - Breadth and balance.
We used the descriptions of learning to collate a broad range of experiences, knowledge and skills and began by mapping out our curriculum and build upon the tradition in St Mary’s of working thematically across the areas of learning.
Phase Four – Pedagogy
We have sought to develop a strong vision of learning and teaching which considers the ‘why’ – our curriculum rationale, the ‘what’ – our curriculum design as well as the ‘how’ – our curriculum planning.
Phase Five – Progression and assessment
As well as using the progression steps in the new curriculum for each area of learning, we believe creativity is at the heart of our new curriculum, and we plan to use the Creative Habits of the Mind rubrics which we have adapted to our school’s context to measure progress in the following areas – discipline, imaginative, inquisitive, persistence and collaborative. In addition, Literacy and Numeracy skills will be regularly assessed and tracked using our in-school tracking system.
Phase Six – Review and evaluate
As we develop our St Mary’s curriculum it will be important to review and evaluate regularly through monitoring activities and providing opportunities for feedback from stakeholders.
Phase 1: Principles and Purpose
St. Mary’s School is a Church in Wales Voluntary Aided primary school for pupils from the age of 3 – 11. The school is in a rural location, geographically situated in North East Wales and close to both Shropshire and Cheshire borders.
Overton on Dee is a small but vibrant village with beautiful surroundings, nestled in the lower Dee valley which is dominated by St. Mary’s Church and the yew trees which are one of The Seven Wonders of Wales. Our Church in Wales school has extensive grounds surrounded by farmer’s fields and an orchard, alongside the footpath of The Maelor Way. We use the rich history and expertise within our village to explore and learn about our surroundings within Cynefin Projects across the school.
The school was opened in 1986 with three classrooms and a school hall. Due to two large extensions the school now has eight classrooms, two resource areas for small group work, a library, large hall and various open areas for use by all the pupils. We currently have 162 children at school who are taught in ‘one form entry’ classes with two large creative spaces. Each classroom has direct access to outdoors. We have particular strengths in the way we work collaboratively across each department, and we plan thematically. The new Curriculum for Wales is intrinsically linked with our school ethos and lends itself to encourage our children to have questioning, curious and enquiring minds.
At St Mary’s we also recognise the importance of Outdoor Learning and have 4 members of staff trained as Forest School Leaders plus another member of staff who is trained in Outdoor Learning. Pupils across both key stages have regular opportunities to undertake learning in an outside environment. In addition to the two forest school areas, which are linked by ‘Fox’s Den’ our outdoor classroom, we also have a pond, raised vegetable and flower beds, history garden, large field with adventure trails and an outdoor stage.
We want our children to be:
Confident to try new things, to embrace challenges, share questions and ideas.
Enthusiastic to participate, be positive and encourage others.
Focused to stay on task, contribute to learning and not distract others from learning.
Creative to use their own ideas and find solutions to problems.
Dependable to be relied on and to do what is expected and help others.
Curious to be motivated to learn, to explore and experiment, to ask questions.
Empathetic to understand their own feelings and those of their peers, to recognise that their actions have consequences and to own their mistakes.
Resilient to persevere, to accept that mistakes are a valuable part of learning, to try different ways to solve problems.
Keen to work hard to achieve their targets, to always try their best, to challenge themselves and seek challenge to improve. To use their initiative and be responsible for their learning.
Phase 2: Entitlement and Enhancement
What do we mean by 'Curriculum'?
A curriculum should be considered at the ‘heart’ of any school. It is a combination of what we teach, the experiences we provide for our pupils and reflects our ethos, vision and values. It will enable us to ensure our learners are ambitious, enterprising, ethical and healthy citizens.
Our curriculum is broad and balanced and suitable for learners of different ages, abilities and aptitudes. It provides for appropriate progression for learners and includes a range of learning experiences to ensure this.
Why do we teach it?
To provide high quality teaching experiences, which excite and motivate children in the classroom and beyond and to ensure they make progress as they move through our school and realise their full potential.
How do we teach?
Our teachers are experienced and highly skilled in ensuring the best for every pupil at St Mary’s. They use a range of strategies and opportunities to plan exciting, creative and equitable learning opportunities. Our teaching staff ensure their starting point is with the child and ensure they provide support and challenge for everyone. Pupil voice is at the heart of each classroom and pupils are able to develop and influence their learning in a way that best suits them.
Forest School and Outdoor Learning
Outdoor learning and forest school forms a huge part of who we are and what we do at St Mary’s. We believe in educating the whole child and providing opportunities for experiential and hands on learning, and taking the skills and concepts learned in the classroom out into the real world.
The outdoor environment provides a range of opportunities for engaging with Science, through observations, developing senses and utilising the sensory-rich natural environment to bring the whole curriculum to life.
The 4 purposes are the starting point for all decisions on the content and experiences developed as part of the curriculum to support our children and young people to be:
- ambitious, capable learners ready to learn throughout their lives
- enterprising, creative contributors, ready to play a full part in life and work
- ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world
- healthy, confident individuals, ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.
The mandatory elements of the curriculum
There are four mandatory elements in the Curriculum for Wales: Religion and Values Education (RVE), Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE), Welsh and English.
As a church school, our Religion, Values and Ethics (RVE) has been designed in accordance with the trust deeds of the school. Our RVE is informed by the Church in Wales Supporting Guidance for RVE and has regard to the Agreed Syllabus. Our school’s Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) follows the code set out by Welsh Government.
Religion, Values and Ethics is a mandatory part of our Humanities curriculum and is built upon a series of concepts and big ideas. Our curriculum provides a range of disciplinary approaches to support learners to engage critically with a broad range of religious and non-religious philosophical convictions.
Welsh is an integral part of the Curriculum for Wales, and as a mandatory subject, our ambition is that all pupils will enjoy using Welsh and will make continuous progress as they move through our school. The ability to be able communicate in two languages, spoken and written, is providing our pupils with an additional life skill.
Literacy, Numeracy and Digital Competence are statutory cross curricular skills; the children use and apply the skills that they have experienced or been taught across all areas of the curriculum and we scaffold our learners to integrate these skills independently.
Phase 4: Pedagogy
Teaching and Learning
At St Mary’s, all staff are here to nurture, scaffold, facilitate and provide a stimulating learning environment for the pupils to thrive and develop an enthusiasm for life-long learning.
The Power of Pupil Voice
At St Mary’s we believe every member of our school community has a voice. At the beginning of each topic pupils are invited to identify learning experiences and opportunities that are of interest to them. This often leads a topic down a different and often very creative route, ensuring that engagement and enthusiasm is nurtured and developed.
Underpinning Pedagogy
At St Mary’s, we aim to ensure that we meet the needs of all learners through high quality teaching and learning provision. Our Universal Provision includes: whole class teaching, effective differentiation, collaborative group work, individual and small group interventions, appropriate and reasonable adjustments to enable access to the school environment, curriculum and facilities.
During their time at St Mary’s, most learners will make expected progress in their learning from their starting points. Regular pupil progress meetings ensure that pupils are tracked and monitored carefully. If we feel a child needs more help to achieve, class teachers will work closely with our ALNCo and parents to identify suitable interventions and small step targets. Regular ITaS meetings ensure that those pupils are monitored and advice is sought. We work with a range of outside agencies to ensure that suitable support is provided.
Pivotal
During the past five years the staff have worked hard to introduce and embrace a simple but effective behaviour system in school. As a result key language and actions are well embedded and utilised and known by all. These include ‘Ready Respectful Safe’, Hands up to show ready, ‘Wise Walking’. These simple concepts ensure that our pupils are always ready to learn, respectful of each other and safe in school.
Health & Well-being
At St Mary’s, the Health & Well-being of pupils and staff underpins everything we do. We employ a range of strategies and programmes to ensure we meet everyone's needs:
- Jigsaw Scheme (covers Relationships and Sexuality Education, Personal and Social Education, Digital Competence Framework and provides weekly opportunity for self reflection).
- Growth Mindset has been a school priority for several years and its principles are well embedded in every day activities.
- Fun Friends, Friends for Life, Student Assistance Program , Pivotal and Whole School Approach to Mental Health and Wellbeing as examples.
Church in Wales School
Our Christian ethos and values forms the basis of everything we do at school and threads seamlessly across our curriculum and our care and support for each other.
As a school we promote Christian values and take a half term to learn about and reflect on a particular value. Pupils demonstrating excellent values are awarded in our Awards Assembly. Our Christian values are: Generosity, Compassion, Courage, Forgiveness, Friendship, Respect, Thankfulness, Trust, Perseverance, Justice, Service and Truthfulness.
Inclusivity
St Mary’s prides itself on inclusivity and we welcome all pupils to our school. The varying needs of the children in our care are dealt with sensitively and effectively. We believe that if each child receives a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum this makes sure that self-esteem and confidence are enhanced and a positive attitude is developed.
Pupils with additional learning needs (ALN) are successfully included as every teacher is a teacher of all pupils. This includes pupils with ALN, as well as those with social, emotional and mental health needs. We pride ourselves in being pioneers for the 'Child Centred Review Process' for our learners with a wide range of ALN.
Our approach to promoting and sustaining a whole school approach to wellbeing recognises the strong links between wellbeing and outcomes for our children and young people. Every child is equal, valued and unique and every child is provided with an environment where they feel safe and can flourish. Our teaching practice and our environment responds to our children in ways which take into account their varied life experiences and particular needs.
Phase 5: Progression and Assessment
TRACKING PROGRESS – CREATIVE HABITS OF THE MIND
We are using The Creative Habits of Mind Wheel as a basis for tracking progress. We have made adaptions to the wheel and the accompanying rubrics so that they fit in with our setting and our vision. We realise that our pupils will need to be creative and critical thinkers in their future and strongly feel that the elements of the wheel match up with the Four Purposes of the curriculum. This also fits in with our work on Growth Mindset and Feedback following our participation in the Shirley Clarke Project.
The Creative Habits of Mind, comes from the work of Guy Claxton, Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer of the Centre for Real World Learning at Winchester University. It is a formative assessment tool in that it can help pupils to:
- develop a shared language of creativity.
- reflect, self assess and value their own creative skills/disposition.
- gather supporting evidence.
- track their progress over time.
- be more self aware of when they are using their creative skills.
- seek opportunities to be more creative and
- to identify future learning goals.
It can help creative professionals and teachers to:
- have a shared language of creativity across the school community.
- to create a dialogue in the school about the value of developing creative skills.
- consider how to build opportunities for creative skill development in learning.
- develop their practice; and support reflection and goal setting with learners.
As a school we have a tracking system and ensure we are planning for opportunities to develop a range of dispositions and monitor the children’s progress. We aim to share our observations with parents regularly throughout the year.
TRACKING PROGRESS AND ASSESSMENT
As well as using Creative Habits of Mind as a basis for tracking progress, we also use the Progression Principles and Steps to monitor and track progress. We also utilise a range of appropriate assessment tools throughout the year including:
- On entry assessment
- RWI Phonic Assessments
- Reading Assessments including Hertfordshire, High Frequency words etc.
- NFER Spelling
- Oracy evidence is regularly recorded on SeeSaw
- Personalised Assessments in Reading and Numeracy and Reasoning
- Number Stacks
- Numeracy tracking
- Rise
- PASS
We have developed a Visible Learning Feedback policy which is well embedded in school now and provides real opportunities for pupils to self and peer assess and identify and correct their own mistakes.
Termly progress meetings with parents are carried out and we currently offer online, face-to-face or by telephone meetings. We also share one page profiles, provide regular 'small step target' reviews, with a child centred approach and keep parents and carers up to date via SeeSaw and Classdojo. Each parent also receives a annual written report.
Phase 6: Review and Evaluate
As we embark on our first full year of Curriculum 2022 we will ensure we build in regular opportunities to come together as professionals to share ideas and good practice, learn from each other, identify areas for development and review and evaluate our work. For us at St Mary’s this is the beginning of our journey and much work is yet to be done.
Our next steps include:
Mapping out our Two year cycle.
Trialling using the Rubrics.
Working collaboratively across year groups.
Continuing to refine planning and assessment tools.
Encourage and provide opportunities to develop understanding of the new curriculum for our parents and carers.
Utilise our pupil voice – ensuring that they are working alongside us as we develop our new curriculum.
Develop Spanish as our chosen modern foreign language.
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