Welcome to Ysgol Eirias, a centre of excellence in learning where everyone is encouraged to be an ambitious learner and to reach their potential. We are a comprehensive, Foundation school situated in Colwyn Bay, North Wales. We are a school of exceptional academic performance which places a high value on equity and bilingualism. We have a local and national reputation as a very successful, outward facing school with a commitment to providing the very best teaching, learning and support to all of our learners. We are proud of a culture that cares for pupils' physical and emotional wellbeing and believe this to be critical in all aspects of life.
The school serves the areas of Colwyn Bay, Rhos on Sea and Mochdre. We have an excellent partnership with our cluster schools and believe that all learners, regardless of school, are on a continuous journey of learning and development. The movement of learners along this journey is important to us and we believe that education is a continuum rather than a series of age-specific stages. Visit the websites of our cluster of schools to find out more about the wonderful work they do.
Ysgol Eirias is adopting the Curriculum for Wales from September 2022. The purpose of this document is to provide a summary of the curriculum and assessment arrangements for learners who will be starting at Ysgol Eirias in Year 7 in September 2022 and onwards.
The key messages of this summary are:
- Development of the new curriculum at Ysgol Eirias
- Meeting the requirements of the Curriculum for Wales
- Approaches to progression and assessment
- Reflection points and continuous improvement.
We, at Ysgol Eirias, have been fortunate enough to have been involved in the development of a new Curriculum for Wales since the preparations began some six years ago. We were a Pioneer School from 2016, engaging in action research and small scale inquiries, the results of which were fed back to the Welsh Government.
Our learners are always at the heart of any decisions we make and have been involved in much of our action research. Samples of learners are always interviewed following any inquiry work and their perspective and feedback is used to form the basis of our evaluations and to support further improvement.
We have delivered a cross-curricular, skills-based curriculum in Year 7 for almost 20 years, evaluating and improving as the years have progressed. In 2019, we aligned our Year 7 projects with the Curriculum for Wales draft AoLEs and have been reflecting, adapting and refining this curriculum as it is is being taught, acting upon feedback from learners, parents and staff. We have allocated specific time for staff throughout this current academic year to work on refining and preparing their curriculum.
We have had a focus on literacy, numeracy and higher order thinking skills for the last 4 years and have worked with external agencies to consider how the teaching and learning of these skills contribute to the Four Purposes. We have built upon the experience of online learning throughout the pandemic from all perspectives, to strengthen and develop the digital literacy skills of our learners and have now created a set of priorities (non-negotiables) to help us evaluate the standard of skills at Eirias and to apply interventions where needed to ensure that all learners make good progress.
Our experience as a Pioneer school has enabled us to plan, conduct and evaluate several case studies spanning a variety of different AoLEs including Health and Wellbeing and Mathematics and Numeracy. This has not only provided staff across a selection of AoLEs to familiarise themselves with the structure of the CfW, it has also allowed them the opportunity to plan and trial lessons that are purpose driven rather than content driven, to gather feedback from learners and observers and to reflect upon the shift needed in their own practice.
Strong leadership of the school and, in turn, the new curriculum is crucial. The school's vision to ensure that the very best teaching and learning is in place, the focus on raising and maintaining aspirations and the delivery of an outstanding curriculum require the very best of our staff.
The vision for the school is our 'true north', that is, our 'moral compass' of the school's values, beliefs and wider purpose.
The vision for the school is to Succeed Together. We believe passionately in working with parents, staff, learners and governors to ensure that our learners make the very best progress, regardless of their start point. At Ysgol Eirias we believe that we have a collective responsibility to educate and support young people and in turn, develop communities and a society that is prosperous, healthy and ambitious.
In developing our vision, we have made sure that we have sought as much feedback as possible, over a number of months in consultation with our stakeholders,.
Our school vision was re-launched in April 2022 and underpins all areas of school life. The school sets Whole School Targets that link to the school vision on an annual basis building on progress and areas for development from the previous year, Please click the link below for access to the full vision statement.
More recently, the school has been developing a vision and schemes of learning for each of the 6 Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs). We believe that it is important for our staff to have ownership of their curriculum plans; they have been empowered to create materials and resources that are engaging, creative, relevant to our context and really push our learners forwards towards the four purposes. Staff across the school have collaborated on these visions and they will be shared with learners, parents and governors as the curriculum begins in September, seeking feedback and adapting as the curriculum is taught. Please click the bottons below to read the vision statements for each AoLE.
The Schemes of Learning have been developed in collaboration with our cluster of primary schools, governors, learners and parents and carers. Primary Schools have been involved at a strategic level during training days and at a wide variety of other opportunities. We have found online collaboration particularly helpful.
As an Eirias cluster we have operated collaborative Professional Learning, focusing on areas such as curriculum planning, assessment, effective pedagogy, skills transfer, mindfulness and attitudes to learning. This is has been essential in the development of the new Curriculum for Wales.
Governors have been kept informed through main and subcommittee groups and consultation has also taken place with specific governors with responsibility for curriculum. Parents and learners have been consulted through surveys and focused group discussion. The findings of these activities have been fed into the design process.
The 4 purposes of the Curriculum for Wales are at the heart of all planning and they have been the starting point for the curriculum design of each AoLE.
Our school curriculum is broad and balanced and includes learning opportunities within and across all of the Areas of learning and experience. The diagram on the left illustrates the structure of our curriculum. It encompasses the concepts in all of the Statements of What Matters and provides appropriate progression in accordance with the principles of progression.
Our teachers have carefully designed our curriculum using the ‘Backwards Curriculum Design Process'.
This has enabled our teachers to carefully identify the desired results (what we want our learners to know, understand and be able to do) from the Statements of What Matter (big ideas) within each AoLE and to consider how these support our learners to make progress towards the Four Purposes of the curriculum.
As part of our 'desired results' for every AoLE we have considered not only the Four Purposes of education, but also the Cross Curricular Skills (CCS), the Integral Skills, the Cross Cutting Themes and Bilingualism. Staff have worked carefully to ensure that these elements have been built into our schemes of learning in an appropriate and relevant way. We have made a conscious agreement to ensure that no part of our curriculum is forced or 'bolt-on'. Our curriculum is authentic and ensures progression.
We have a dedicated 'Skills Team' at Ysgol Eirias. The Team is made up of the Head of Skills working with the Cross Phase Skills Co-ordinator, the Literacy, Numeracy and Digital Competency Co-ordinators, and more recently the Lead for Cymraeg Bob Dydd (Bilingualism). These colleagues work together to support staff in planning their provision for skills (both the cross curricular skills and the integral skills) and the Welsh language. They also have an overview of the curriculum as a whole and ensure a varied, authentic and progressive approach. They collaborate with our cluster primary schools, our Student Voice and seek both staff and learner perspective and feedback.
We have recently appointed a Citizenship Coordinator whose role is to lead and co-ordinate the Cross Cutting Themes (including Relationships and Sexual Education, Diversity and Humanity) across the school, using Student Voice to develop further ideas and ensure stakeholder involvement. Again, ensuring authentic and varied experiences for our learners across the curriculum.
Once the desired results were identified, our teachers then spent time considering how they will determine the assessment evidence (check for the understanding). This method of planning has promoted a focus on effective assessment that is at the heart of every lesson and supports the planning for learners' next steps.
We have used the Principles of Progression within each AoLE to help us plan learning activities that build and develop the knowledge, skills and learning attitudes of our learners. We have also appointed a Transition Co-ordinator to work closely with our primary cluster and ensure that our learners can benefit from a 'through school' approach to education, both academically and emotionally.
The Curriculum for Wales uses Progression Steps (PS) as a way of indicating progression. At Ysgol Eirias we have used the Descriptions of Learning within each PS to support our design of the experiences that learners will have. We are also guided by the Principles of Progression set out within each AoLE.
We have 3 purposes of assessment:
- Supporting individual learners on an ongoing, day to day basis;
- Identifying, capturing and reflecting on individual learner progress over time;
- Understanding group progress in order to reflect on and improve practice.
At Ysgol Eirias, assessment is ongoing and provides a holistic view of the learners' achievements in comparison to their own individual starting point, rather than in comparison to other learners. Assessment is undertaken with learners during the learning process to explore how they are progressing. This is to identify achievements, as well as areas where their learning needs to develop further. This information is then used by learners and teachers to determine the next steps needed to improve their learning further and to inform future planning e.g. through the provision of appropriate intervention strategies. We use Dylan William's 'Five Key Strategies of Formative Assessment' (see diagram below) to guide our practice.
An effective learning partnership with learners and parents and carers is important to us and we have created a new structure for reporting to parents and carers about their child's progress and next steps with the Curriculum for Wales. We are also investigating ways of involving parents and carers in a more substantial way to support the progression of our learners.
Our new reporting structure helps us move away from target levels and grades and instead it helps us to focus on the progress that a child is making from their starting point and the next steps needed to ensure continued progression.
We recognise the value of 'learning fitness' and have created 'Learning Measure' descriptors to help us feedback to parents and carers about the attitude that their child has towards their learning. Our reports provide parents and carers with the following:
- A progress measure, relating to their child's starting point
- A learning measure, relating to the principles of progression and describing learning fitness
- A wellbeing measure, relating to attendance and progress towards the integral skills
- Advice for next steps, these also relate to the principles of progression.
We will continue to use the national personalised assessments along with other testing strategies to evaluate our standards of literacy and numeracy across school and to inform the teaching and learning of skills across the curriculum.
Our school curriculum will be kept under review to ensure that it is meeting the needs of our learners, our community and our school vision. Throughout the academic year 2022-23 there will continue to be a variety of self-evaluation activities to inform our understanding of the effectiveness of our curriculum and the required revision. We will work within our school, across the cluster and in partnership with governors, the regional consortia, the local authority and our ITE partnership to further develop a shared understanding of progression and to ensure a high-quality 3-16 continuum of learning for all.
Feedback will take a number of forms including:
- Quality Assurance of Year 7 books;
- Personalised assessments;
- Focused group discussion with learners in Year 7;
- Surveys: learners and parents;
- Governor reviews;
- Dedicated meeting time for teaching staff to collaborate with colleagues within and outside of school;
- Line management meetings for AoLE leads;
- Student Voice Meetings;
- Primary Cluster Meetings and training days.
Feedback will be shared to all our stakeholders through the dedicated section on our website.