Curriculum Implementation and Long Term Plans
Westwood Primary School
We believe that providing our children with a curriculum that is hands on, inspiring and engaging is key as it creates memorable learning. All children should enjoy learning and be passionate about what they are doing. Through our curriculum we generate a culture of ‘botheredness’. When learning children are fully immersed in what they are doing, to feel bothered, to care and to empathise. By creating this sense of ‘botheredness’ our children learn, engage and are passionate about what they are doing and in return make good progress and achieve their dreams.
At Westwood we place great value on the wider curriculum and through our way of working ensure that each and every subject is wrapped up in our three core values and beliefs.
Due to Westwood Primary being a 40 in take, mixed year group classes are a logistical feature of our school. Therefore, our Wider Curriculum is taught in a two-year rolling cycle where subjects are Key Stage specific. Subjects that are Year group specific are taught yearly. Each Key Stage follows a Long-Term Plan that has been carefully developed by school leaders to ensure progressions of learning and thorough coverage of the curriculum.
Each half term each key stage will have a driving subject which leads the half terms planning and creates connections between subjects. Through giving teachers time to work together as a key stage it allows the driver to remain in a current and relevant context. From this, teachers create an adventure which allows all subjects within that half term to be covered including writing and reading where possible. The purpose of the adventure is to create the ‘botheredness’. It allows children to feel a purpose for what they are doing. It provides them with the opportunity to care, to empathise, to question, to problem solve, to generate enterprise, to be hands on, to be inspired and to be passionate.
The adventure allows fluidity between all subjects, it allows cross-curricular links to be made and it allows children to become completely immersed in their learning for the half term. During each half term every piece of learning within the context of the adventure links to the next. This means that timetables are left flexible and the order of learning completely depends on where the adventure takes them next. Through this immersive way of curriculum delivery, the children are able to draw upon their wider range of prior knowledge to create a deeper understanding of their learning.
Within each adventure, there is an expectation that a variety of teaching strategies will be used in order to engage all learners and create memorable experiences: imagineering, active learning, the use of the outdoors, practical and real-life opportunities.
Children sharing their learning and articulating their achievements is an important part of our curriculum delivery. At the end of each adventure parents are invited in to celebrate the children’s success and the learning that has taken place.
At Westwood we believe that taking children on an adventure through their learning is exciting! So are you ready to go on an adventure with us?
Long Term Plans
The documents below show the long term plans for each key stage. Each long term plan runs over a two year rolling cycle with a new adventure for each half term. The subjects and brief outline of the learning are shown on these plans. Detailed long term plans for each subject can be found in each subjects tab on the website. These will show the skills from the curriculum that are taught in each adventure in each subject.