Our curriculum:
- is focussed around our ethos ‘Developing Lively Inquiring and Creative Minds’
- aims to provide positive, relevant and meaningful experiences for the children
- is exciting and engaging
- is well planned and is progressive
- supports children to achieve well
- compliments our Carlton Skill Set and our caring, passionate and positive school community and setting
- has meta-cognition (learning to learn) at the centre of its activities, objectives and assessment
- is always developing and we review it regularly, looking to enhance and improve where we can
Maths and English are very important at Carlton, but so too is the wider curriculum. Whether through our curriculum offer and lessons in class, through our regular productions and performances, school trips, visits and use of visitors, or after school clubs, we want children to have positive experiences, challenges and successes and in a wide range of contexts.
We have designed our curriculum for the pupils of our school, based upon the National Curriculum and prioritising important links to things important to our children and our specific geographical local area. Importantly our curriculum is based upon developing children’s skills and knowledge
Each class has its own sequenced curriculum map that outlines the curriculum entitlement for children. End of year expectations for each year group are used and we have developed vocabulary lists/subject knowledge banks that are used to ensure that there is a clear progression as to how the children acquire subject specific vocabulary.
The Curriculum is based around reading and vocabulary, as we believe these are the fundamental building blocks to knowledge acquisition and learning. Research has shown that the key to ensuring learning moves into the long-term memory is through establishing children have the relevant knowledge to build upon. Those children who have more knowledge and vocabulary make greater progress, without this background knowledge it is harder for children to transfer their learning into long-term memory. ‘The correlation between vocabulary size and life chances are as firm as any in educational research’ (OFSTED). At Carlton we offer a systematic process that allows children to acquire vocabulary and knowledge progressively as they move through school.
There are strong systems in place to ensure that children acquire knowledge and vocabulary in an appropriately progressive manner. English is taught consistently through the Talk4writing approach. Maths is taught using White Rose. Reading is taught through the Read Write inc phonics programme in EYFS and KS1. In KS2, we have whole class reading sessions but continue to use the sequence from Read Write Inc. These all have very clear progression systems and provide a framework for learning which ensures that the knowledge is transferred into the long-term memory.
We have developed yearly expectations for each subject. This ensures there is a clear progression in everything that we do which builds on prior learning and allows knowledge to be transferred into the long-term memory. At Carlton we have created a series of vocabulary lists for each year group in each subject, which will ensure that subject specific words are taught systematically with the aim of closing the knowledge gap. These words are revisited and consolidated through mini quizzes throughout school.
Each year group has a separate curriculum. Meaningful links are encouraged to be found between subjects but not to the detriment of individual subjects.
The knowledge base that the children acquire is based on the National Curriculum. The sequence of the knowledge and skills content has been carefully planned to ensure they are built upon over the course of an individual year and over a period of a number of years. The key knowledge contained is what the children learn and is continually revisited in order to transfer the knowledge into the long term memory.
At Carlton, we have ensured that children as part of the curriculum have the entitlement to learn and participate in life skills, visits and experiences that we feel are fundamental to ensuring the children have a balanced education. Our visits are planned progressively and ensure that children over the course of their time here have a range of key experiences. Similarly, life skills that the school identified as being key for our children are integral to our curriculum.
Alongside this, we ensure that all children have opportunities to experience and become skilled at sports, music and the performing arts.
Whilst we recognise the primacy of reading, writing and maths within our curriculum, we ensure that the depth of the other areas of the curriculum are suitably robust and progressive to ensure our children leave us having had an education that will allow them to become well rounded members of society.