Our Gagle Brook Curriculum
At Gagle Brook we care about our learning, each other and the world around us.
Our school is always a warm, welcoming atmosphere where the curriculum is designed to: recognise children’s prior learning; provide first hand learning experiences; allow the children to develop interpersonal skills; build resilience, become creative, critical thinkers through a fully inclusive approach and prepare pupils to be more adaptable and well versed for the ever changing world around them.
Our enquiry based curriculum has 4 streams which run through all of our teaching and learning and underpin everything that we believe in at Gagle Brook.
Knowledge and Skills Intent
Our intent is for all children to develop mastery across our broad and balanced curriculum so that they know more and remember more and acquire the knowledge to make and apply connections. In order to do this, our curriculum is underpinned by high-quality planning and teaching of skills, knowledge, concepts and values, centred on challenge for all. The carefully sequenced curriculum means every child will reach their full potential by building on previously learnt knowledge and skills, extending this using carefully planned, small incremental steps and going deeper with their understanding rather than moving to new content.
Enquiring Minds Intent
Our intent is for every child to care about their learning. Our termly, enquiry-based questions engage learners and provide opportunities for children to know more, remember more and be able to do more. Our intent is for our curriculum to provide all children with an invitation to learn where there are no limits to curiosity, questioning and challenge, whether children are actively learning inside or in our extensive outdoor classroom environment they build resilience, independence and a ‘can do’ attitude. Within their enquiry, our intent is for children to care for each other and work collaboratively to support those who may be struggling, achieve a collective goal or answer a collective question. While we promote independent lifelong learners, we also place value on the ability to work alongside others in a supportive way.
Language Rich Intent
Our intent is that all children will be immersed in a vocabulary rich environment through: the use of high quality texts across our broad curriculum; a ‘Reading for Pleasure’ ethos within the school; and ensuring we have high expectations of verbal oracy throughout our teaching and learning. We will carefully plan and teach key vocabulary across the subject areas, building on children’s prior knowledge, and children will develop a breadth of language by the time they leave Gagle Brook.
Values and One Planet Principles Intent
Our intent is for all children to embrace and develop a shared set of school values which link to the One Planet Principles which we, as an eco-school, abide by. We want all children at Gagle Brook to understand the communities that they are a part of, recognising every child as a unique individual and their developing personal values to prepare them for an ever changing and modern world.
As a growing school, our intent is to build an environment where all children will leave our school with a sense of belonging (understanding and caring about the world around them) where they have the confidence and skills to make decisions, self-evaluate, make connections and become purposeful citizens. Our intent is to take as much learning into the outside world to engage, enlighten and excite our children as they make the links between the core National Curriculum, our bespoke, school curriculum and the world around them.
Phonics and Reading
The scheme we use to support the teaching of phonics is Read, Write, Inc. We embrace the use of high quality texts from Early Years into Key Stage 2, which are shared between school and home and used for teaching of reading and writing. We also believe in the regular opportunities for teachers to read high quality text to children for pleasure.
With the National Curriculum as our starting point, we believe that our curriculum allows us to provide a range of opportunities for us to develop numeracy, language, vocabulary, writing and oracy experiences for all children, across the different subject areas.
Where possible, cross curricular links are established, however explicit teaching of other subjects using a variety of stimuli is adopted when strong, appropriate links cannot be made. Links between previous learning are made to support deeper understanding and to encourage children to apply their knowledge and make connections across the curriculum areas.
Learning is carefully sequenced with regular opportunities to revisit and build upon prior knowledge to ensure the needs of all children are met. We recognise that we are all on a journey of learning and our curriculum mirrors this; we build on learning from previous terms and the current term, as well as previous years, so that we can embed short and long term learning.
Knowledge and Skills Implementation
The National Curriculum is the base for deciding upon the knowledge and skills that the children will be taught in each year group and the progression of skills in place across all subject areas. Our curriculum is designed to ensure that, where possible, learning is relevant to our diverse school population as well as the wider community and is rooted in the unique, opportunities that our eco school delivers for all learners. Our enquiry based curriculum hooks children in, embracing cross curricular links, to enhance learning experiences and to give context to the knowledge acquired and skills taught.
Where this is not possible, other high quality texts, visual stimuli and experiences are used to make the knowledge and skills being taught as accessible as possible. Where necessary, the curriculum is adapted to ensure that all learners are able to access learning from their own starting points, yet remaining both ambitious and achievable.
Children are given regular opportunities to reflect on their learning and to share what they know. This might be in the form of a quiz, a presentation or a discussion during lesson time. From September 2021, at the end of each term, parents and visitors will be invited in to the school to share in the children’s final outcomes based on the termly, enquiry based question. Children will showcase their knowledge, skills and vocabulary across the subject areas and home, school and community links will be further established.
Enquiring Minds Implementation
Our whole school curriculum engages children through termly enquiry based questions and encourages children to extend their learning through thoughtfully planned and sequenced lessons. Children are encouraged to let their enquiring minds wonder across the different subject areas, by asking how and why questions, challenging their thinking further, having a thirst for new experiences and securing deeper knowledge and understanding. Our children explore and investigate learning through the use of our indoor and outdoor classrooms and hands on experiences which support their deeper understanding, develop their curiosity and apply what they learn to different contexts.
Language Rich Implementation
In every subject, the key language and vocabulary needed by children to communicate their learning is identified on long term planning and modelled and used by staff. Vocabulary is displayed on working walls to support learning and to scaffold responses from all children. Sentence stems are used across the curriculum to enhance children’s oracy and reasoning skills. High quality texts are used to provide a wealth of vocabulary, model sentence structure and to give context and engage children in their learning. Staff at Gagle Brook are encouraged to be passionate about language and model effective use of vocabulary within every aspect of their teaching.
Values and One Planet Implementation
As a school our ethos is built around a foundation of core Values and One Planet Principles. These are the basis for the social, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and moral development of our children. Each term we learn about a different Value and One Planet Principle as a school and link it to a significant individual who has impacted on world, embedding this through curriculum links to develop the whole child as well as:
- A programme of school assemblies which discuss the termly value and one planet principle and how we demonstrate them
- Direct class teaching around each Value and One Planet Principle
- Staff modelling values through their own behaviour and celebrating them with our children
- Ensuring that values are taught implicitly through every aspect of the curriculum
Our curriculum embraces outside learning and opportunities to learn within our wider environment and community. We recognise every child as a unique individual and celebrate and welcome differences within our school and wider community. Community involvement is an essential part of our curriculum as we recognise local and cultural traditions, enabling the children to understand and respect the diverse world in which we live and linking again to the One Planet Principles of Equity and Community.
We measure the impact of our curriculum through:
- Sampling children’s learning across the school to recognise progress and attainment and to celebrate success
- Pupil discussions with teachers, Curriculum Champions and Senior Leaders about their learning
- Regular pupil progress meetings with teachers, where high quality interaction and reflection supports next steps for all children, based upon the knowledge of the individual child
- Reflecting as a staff team on the standards achieved against the planned outcomes across the curriculum
- Celebrating learning at the end of each termly ‘enquiry question’, where children demonstrate what they know and what they are able to do more of
Long Term Plans