Curriculum

At Flora Gardens, we have combined the content of the DfE curriculum into an individualised values-led, creatively integrated approach for each year group. Our 6 values of Trust, Fulfilment, Respect, Personal Wellbeing, Choosing your Attitude and Adventure lead each creative topic whilst ensuring that all statutory content is covered for depth and engagement. Underlying all topics are the fundamental British values of Democracy, the Rule of Law, Respecting Others and Individual Liberty.

Each values-based curriculum starts with a ‘hook’ to engage the children and excite them in their new topic. Some examples of these hooks are:

A fairy visit in Year 1.
A letter from the Queen inviting Year 2 to the Tower of London.
Adopting an Orang-utan in Year 2.
A ’mummy’ visiting the Year 4 classroom in the middle of the night and leaving clues.
A visitor to Year 5 from the Thames Waterworks project asking the children to research how best to save water.
A visit from the author/illustrator William Grill where he taught the children the painting techniques he used in his book-‘Shackleton’s Journey’ which was Year 6’s class text.

The following half term is then focused on that topic integrating Foundation Subjects, where possible, through a meaningful, creative approach. Discrete Foundation Subjects are also taught alongside the thematic approach, ensuring the key knowledge and skills of each subject are not diluted or ‘pigeon-holed’ into these half termly topics.

Each learning opportunity has the 6 values at the heart of it, with a focus value each half term across the school. This ensures that the children have opportunities to extend these values and build on their skills and personal development within them. Additionally, each class has high quality English texts every half term that underpin Reading and Writing

During the half term, each class has the opportunity to extend their learning outside of the classroom and expand their cultural capital, with an educational visit or workshop. Such visits have included:

Year 1’s trip to Fulham Palace Toy Exhibition as part of the Toys and Games topic.
Year 2’s visit to St Paul’s Cathedral as part of the ‘Fire! Fire!’ topic.
Year 3’s trip to the British Museum to look at Stone Age and Iron Age artefacts.
Year 4’s trip to Barnes Wetland Centre to look at local animals habitats.
Year 5’s to Sky Studios to create their own news reports.
Year 6’s visit to London Zoo to further develop their living things, Scientific learning.

Culminating events are also an integral part of our curriculum as an opportunity for children to share their learning with parents and to communicate with a purpose e.g. having an audience. Some such events that close each values-led topic have included:

Year 2’s Art Exhibition that encouraged parents to get creative too
Year 3’s ‘McFlora Café’ that sold healthy options
Year 5’s Victorian-themed performance to parents from a workhouse.
Year 6’s Enterprise Fayre where they were responsible for the budgeting and innovation of products and profit.

We aim for each child to leave Flora Gardens Primary School with the experiences, skills, knowledge and personal achievements that make a holistic learner. Academic results matter, but equally so do the attributes and qualities that make each child an individual; and our personalised curriculum develops all of these in unison.

Intent:

Our 6 school values are at the core of our curriculum and are embedded in everything that we do here at Flora Gardens Primary School. The curriculum at Flora Gardens Primary School aims to prepare children in understanding the world around them and prepare them for the next stage of their education. We want our pupils to be both engaged in their learning and engaging future citizens.

The design of our curriculum is based on Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction, focusing on core knowledge and skills each lesson, retrieval practise, key vocabulary and planning skilful adaptations so all learners can keep up, rather than catch up. Alongside these core curriculum elements, the school has also prioritised foundational knowledge and skills from EYFS-Year 6, ensuring children are given sufficient, high-quality opportunities to practise these basics.

By the time pupils have left Flora Gardens Primary School, they will have developed a range of both skills and knowledge across the Primary National Curriculum; had ample opportunity to engage in enrichment activities across the school and feel prepared to navigate and respect diverse social and cultural contexts in our wider world.

Implementation:

Each half term teachers plan and deliver the curriculum through a consistent approach. As part of this process, staff plan for and implement the following –

Comprehensive Medium Term plans that include the core knowledge for each of the Foundation Subjects taught that half term and prior learning to build upon;
‘Brain bites’ that identify the core knowledge, vocabulary and skills to focus on for each lesson;
Lessons that build on the prior ones and careful consideration for revisiting knowledge, progression and depth through daily review and retrieval practise;
High quality reading texts chosen in conjunction with the CLPE recommended reading lists across EYFS-Year 6, ensuring our pupils' diverse cultural backgrounds are valued and incorporated so all children feel represented;
Read Write Inc as the school’s chosen phonics approach; focusing on actions, rhymes and repetition to ensure that targeted teaching and progress groups address specific gaps in pupils’ phonics knowledge;
Readers Theatre approach for daily reading in Key Stage 2, allowing the learning to be focused on fluency, linguistic knowledge and knowledge of the world, ensuring that end of Key-stage tests do not disproportionally influence curriculum decisions;
A language-rich Writing curriculum, ‘I Am A Clever Writer’ that focuses on vocabulary and the foundational skills of Writing, such as compositional skills and handwriting, leading to longer, extended pieces of writing;
Use of White Rose as the school’s Maths curriculum; focusing on opportunities to practise fluency, reasoning and problem solving ensuring all children can fully demonstrate their understanding of the new mathematical skills and knowledge;
A ‘Hook’ to engage the children each half term and launch their new class text, ensuring learning is purposeful and substantive for the pupils;
A low-stakes retrieval practise each lesson that encourages children to assimilate learning into their long-term memory, where gains are celebrated with misconceptions planned for and addressed;
A Subject Specialist approach in Key Stage 2, where expert-subject teachers deliver high-quality lessons in Computing, RE, Spanish, Music, Physical Education and Drama. The school has chosen this approach for certain Foundation subjects as the expertise and passion of subject specialists leads to enhanced learning, inspired curiosity in the children and a deeper understanding of specific subjects as well as preparing the children for their transition to Key Stage 3;
A Workshop or Educational Visit each half term that develops significant learning for a chosen subject and enhances cultural capital;
A ‘Culminating Event’ to conclude each half term where all learning is recapped and summarised, and where parents are invited to share their views and inform future curriculum design along with the children;
A curriculum overview for parents/carers so pupils can be supported in their learning at home;

The school has linked up with another Outstanding local Primary school to share expertise within the staff team, further develop the learning opportunities for children and to share resources for this academic year.

Impact:

We measure the impact of our curriculum each half term through the following:

Pupil and Teacher evaluations of each half-termly units that are used to inform future curriculum design, evaluating the effectiveness of the curriculum and inclusive of the impact of values incorporated into the units;
Tracking of the daily retrieval practise in all subjects to inform daily and weekly planning, using assessment for learning to ensure all learners are keeping up;
A celebration of work, knowledge and skills achieved on Subject displays across the school;
A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes through formal tracking of Core subject knowledge and skills using FFT;
Termly Foundation-Subject Assessments against the core knowledge and skills;
A Portfolio of ‘wider curriculum’ opportunities shared on Class Dojo with parents, ensuring Cultural Capital, PSHE, British Values and opportunities to thrive are at the core of these;
Termly Core-Subject Assessments used to inform future Interventions and address misconceptions;
Half termly assessments of the foundational knowledge and skills, and further interventions for those pupils who require it;
Termly celebrating and awarding of value badges for children who consistently demonstrate the values of the school.

Innovation:

Our longer-term vision for our curriculum is to fully embed cultural capital and develop the experiences we offer throughout each half term by the following –

Multiple educational visits, workshops and exposure to cultural capital opportunities each half term for EYFS – Year 6 that link with multiple individual subjects;
Expanding our subject specialist teaching of various foundation subjects - including Science, Geography, History, Art, DT and exploring Forest School opportunities;
To work alongside local feeder Secondary schools for all subjects to help develop UKS2 curriculum for transition to KS3;
To improve the critical thinking of children through different learning opportunities and extra-curricular opportunities such as debating;
To continue to offer off-curriculum House Days across the year engaging all children with a focus on personal wellbeing.