Dream It, Achieve It, Use the Force!
What are our Guiding Principles to drive our Curriculum?
Welcome to our Curriculum
Our curriculum is ever-evolving. It has been designed over a period of time by our passionate and enthusiastic professionals and it continues to be adapted and improved. Through this, we aim to provide a curriculum that is engaging, balanced and rigorous.
We have deliberately designed our curriculum to allow all pupils to have the greatest opportunities to acquire a strong knowledge base in which to build key skills and make links across AOLEs.
While emphasis is placed on pupils learning the core knowledge and skills to excel English and maths, we place great value on developing the ‘whole child’ and provide an engaging programme of study for all curriculum areas.
Our curriculum promotes both mastery and equitability – for all pupils.
A Curriculum Overview
Our Welsh Connections
As a English-medium school, we want to instil a sense of belonging and pride in our learners - which why Wales' cultural richness, its languages, its history, and its traditions are reflected in our school curriculum.
All pupils across the school receive Welsh lessons as part of their Literacy, Language and Communication curriculum. However, Welsh is used incidentally to reinforce the day to day use of the language.
We want pupils to have a strong sense of their own identity and well-being, as well as a culturally rich understanding of other people's identities. This will enable them to build connections with people, places, and histories both locally and globally.
What do we mean by 'Curriculum'?
A curriculum should be considered at the ‘heart’ of any school – it is the learning diet which is offered to all pupils.
The curriculum at YBH is broad and balanced and is suitable for all learners of different ages, abilities and aptitudes to ensure that all pupils are ambitious, enterprising, ethical and healthy citizens.
Our Curriculum Aims to:
We want our curriculum to have have impact. The 5 aims for our curriculum at Ysgol Bryn Hedydd are:
- Have a positive impact on pupil progress and attainment
- Deepen pupils’ understanding of key concepts
- Engage pupils and increase their enjoyment of lessons
- Make more impactful use of teacher time
- Drive change and improve lives
Curriculum Design - The Four Purposes
Teachers facilitate learning which is centred around the Four Purposes, but students will have opportunities to influence the curriculum's design in order to improve their own learning. These are the principles we use while designing and teaching lessons to ensure that students' learning is truly embedded.
Four Purposes - A Closer Look
Curriculum Design - AOLEs
Our Ysgol Bryn Hedydd curriculum contains the 6 Areas of Learning and Experience (AOLEs), it encompasses the Statements of What Matters and reflects the Principles of Progression. It includes the required curriculum elements and embeds the mandatory cross-curricular skills and the integral skills which underpin the four purposes of the curriculum.
Planning in Action - How it all come together.
A Truly Inclusive Approach.
As a school, we strive to meet the needs of all pupils by providing high-quality teaching and learning opportunities. Whole-class instruction, effective differentiation, collaborative group work, individual and small-group interventions, and appropriate and reasonable changes to enable access to the school environment, curriculum, and facilities are all part of our Universal Provision.
Most learners will make expected progress in their learning from their starting positions during their time at Ysgol Bryn Hedydd. If a child is not making progress, we will collect observations, analyse assessment data, and seek to collaborate with outside agencies and specialists to identify any additional learning needs.
"The school is a nurturing and caring community with an inclusive and happy family ethos" - Estyn, 2020
"Pupils benefit from a wide range of external specialist agencies that support vulnerable pupils with specific emotional, physical and educational needs to make good progress. The individual education plans of pupils with special educational needs are concise and clear" - Estyn, 2020
Happy, Healthy Children.
We are committed to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our pupils and staff at Ysgol Bryn Hedydd. We recognise that everyone faces obstacles in life that might make us vulnerable, and that anyone may require additional emotional assistance at times. Now, more than ever, this is critical.
At Ysgol Bryn Hedydd we:
- help children to understand their emotions and feelings better
- help children feel comfortable sharing any concerns or worries
- help children socially to form and maintain relationships
- promote self-esteem and ensure children know that they count
- encourage children to be confident and ‘dare to be different’
- help children to develop emotional resilience and to manage setbacks
Religion, Values and Ethics (RVE)
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. Religion, Values and Ethics in our school will be designed giving regard to the Agreed Syllabus. Elements of RVE may be taught as a discrete lesson but may be included as part of a wider ‘topic’ where appropriate.
The RVE lens:
- Search for meaning and purpose How people respond to the deeper questions of life in order to understand the human condition.
- The natural world and living things How and why people show concern and responsibility for the world and experience awe and wonder in nature.
- Identity and belonging What makes us who we are as people, communities
- Authority and influence How and why different types of authority influence people’s lives.
- Relationships and responsibility How people live together and why developing healthy relationships is important.
- Values and ethics How and why people make moral choices and how this influences their actions.
- The journey of life What people experience as part of the journey of life and how these experiences are acknowledged.
Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE)
RSE plays an important role for the safeguarding and protection of all learners in Wales.
Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) is a a mandatory element of the Curriculum for Wales – so that every child has a right to access the full curriculum.
It includes learning on anti-bullying, violence against woman and online safety as part of a whole school approach.
Assessment and Progression
Every session and every new topic at Ysgol Bryn Hedydd are built around evaluating the pupils' learning. Learning and assessment are ongoing processes, as shown by The Principles of Progression.
On a daily basis, the assessment cycle involves checking how well pupils are doing with each new concept, idea, or skill introduced. A teacher will reassess how they taught it if they discover that a pupil hasn't "got it." They might revisit the topic and approach the learning in a different way, or they might give learners extra practise or an alternative strategy for cementing their knowledge.
At Ysgol Bryn Hedydd, we utilise assessment data to help teachers better understand where their pupils are and where they need to be, to inspire pupils and help them make progress, to inform parents and help them support their children's education, and to enhance what happens in the classroom.
We use the Descriptions of Learning for each What Matters Statement to assess and plan for learners' progress.
These broadly correspond to expectations for ages 5, 8, 11, 14 and 16 and offer guidance on how learners should demonstrate progress within each Statement.
These are not used as a list of tick boxes, but as tools to consider when planning for our learners' progress.
In addition, there are Principles of Progression that underpin our planning for learners' progress across the fields over time.
How we measure growth
In order to assist each learner's growth, we use a variety of assessment methodologies across the curriculum.
Reflection and Evaluation
In order to determine what is working and what needs to be improved, the school will continuously assess and evaluate what it is doing. We will look at what we have chosen to see the impact on pupils and by looking at the bigger picture in line with our curriculum vision. We are going to capture the effectiveness of our offer by evaluating if we have built in enough:
Credits:
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