At Florence Melly Community Primary School we read, write and think like: authors, mathematicians, scientists, historians, geographers, musicians, artists, linguists, theologists, athletes, digital nomads, designers and technologists. We want our children to have no limits to what their ambitions are and want them to embody our core values. We firmly believe that: “if you can DREAM it, you can do it”.
Our Curriculum Intent
Our curriculum is our DNA – it is who we are, it is what makes our school special and it is our vehicle for maximising the potential of every single child that steps foot through our doors. Our curriculum is built around six BIG DREAMS, with our core values sitting at the heart. Our core values are deeply embedded into the fabric of our school and we use them as the bedrock for developments across all aspects of school life. Our BIG DREAMS, alongside our core values, underpin all curriculum innovations and are the overarching ambitions of our curriculum offer. We see these as absolutely integral in our quest to prepare our pupils for the next stage of their lives.
Our curriculum BIG DREAMS are:
- Use high-quality texts as the beating heart of everything we do, we develop a genuine love of reading so that our children are motivated to read widely and often for information and pleasure. We are a reading school and every inch of our setting is filled with inspiring texts, designed to immerse and engage our children.
- Build cultural capital so that our children learn from and respect other cultures. We want them to feel secure, part of our community and understand that they belong in our Flo Melly family. We want to help them understand their place in the world so that they are determined to be the best versions of themselves beyond their time in our setting.
- We use the vibrancy of Liverpool to help pupils make connections and appreciate the city’s heritage and uniqueness. We want them to be proud of where they are from and we empower them to showcase and celebrate our great city!
- Systematically teach and expose our children to ambitious vocabulary to foster a love of language so that they can unwrap the origins of words, develop word consciousness and apply their understanding across all curriculum areas.
- Enrich pupils time in our school with memorable and unforgettable experiences, trips, lessons and clubs, ensuring equity for all.
- Provide a safe and inclusive environment so that our children thrive and have no limits to what their ambitions are…if they can DREAM it, they can do it!
Our Curriculum Implementation
We implement our BIG DREAMS, and all subject specific knowledge and skills, through three main curriculum drivers. Theses are: our Core Curriculum offer, our Broad and Balanced Curriculum offer and our Cultural Capital Curriculum offer. For some curriculum areas, we use CUSP (Curriculum with Unity Schools Partnership), as our starting point. The CUSP curriculum offer is built on a firm foundation of evidence, research and cognitive science.
- Our Core Curriculum offer focuses on: Early Reading and Phonics, English including Reading, Writing and Oracy, Mathematics and Science.
- Our Broad and Balanced Curriculum offer explores: the wider foundation subjects including History, Geography, Art and Design, Design Technology, Physical Education, Music, Modern Foreign Languages (Spanish), Computing and Religious Education.
- Our Cultural Capital Curriculum offer draws together: PSHE, Relationship and Sex Education (RSHE), our Core and British Values, Mental Heath and Wellbeing, SMSC and safeguarding (including online safety). As part of our Cultural Capital curriculum we embed key health, wellbeing and safety messages so that our children are provided with the knowledge and skills to be physically and mentally healthy and safe in school and beyond the classroom. We promote key safety messages including: how to stay safe online, an awareness of child on child abuse and how to recognise the signs of positive and poor mental health.
All subject areas have clear and well-defined key concepts. These are the curricular specific BIG IDEAS and the vehicle to connect the subject knowledge and explicit vocabulary used to learn about the content (substantive knowledge). Furthermore, each subject curricula has been carefully crafted into topics and deliberately sequenced. By being systematic about how knowledge is introduced and revisited, we improve the likelihood of our pupils knowing more and remembering more over time.
Our skilled subject leaders define the disciplinary knowledge (the methods used to establish the substantive facts) so that our children can use their knowledge and become more expert in each subject. For example, thinking geographically like a geographer. In additional to this, our subject leaders have developed subject specific characteristics which help empower our children to become experts within each subject area.
The cumulative end goals for each year group/phase are well known, understood and owned by our dedicated team. Our pupils are taught the right content, at the right time, building upon what they already know so that knowledge and skills are retained, embedded and transferred to long-term memory.
Language acquisition is placed front and centre, with a clearly defined approach to explicit vocabulary instruction.
We have six school core values which permeate all aspects of school life at Florence Melly Community Primary. These values are centred round the acronym: DREAMS. A core value is explored every half term and is unpicked through our Cultural Capital curriculum.
The vast majority of subjects are taught discretely but staff make meaningful links across subjects to deepen children’s learning.
At Florence Melly Community Primary School, implementation is successful because of strong subject leadership and subject knowledge, high-quality first teaching, timely and effective intervention and purposeful formative and summative assessment practices – used to meet the needs of all pupils.
Our Curriculum Impact
Our Curriculum Lead, supported by our Subject Leaders, issue staff with long-term curriculum sequences, making clear the substantive knowledge and concepts from the EYFS to Year 6, in every subject area. These are accompanied by progression maps which identify the key vocabulary and cumulative end goals by the end of year group and/or each phase.
Staff produce medium and short-term plans to set out the critical content for each topic and/or lesson, identifying engaging activities, resources, high-quality texts and formative assessment opportunities which are used to secure the intended learning outcomes.
We use formative assessment information every day, in every lesson. On-going assessments lead to action to provide immediate feedback or identify if individuals or groups need to revisit, consolidate or move on. Staff use this information to inform their short-term planning and interventions. This enables us to provide the best possible support for all pupils.
Working collaboratively, our Curriculum, Assessment and Subject Leads have established an assessment framework to help support staff gather vital assessment information, at the right time, throughout lessons and topics. We capture understanding within lessons and use this to inform summative judgements for each child in every subject area. Every lesson ends with quizzes and activities designed to capture pupils’ understanding of the cumulative end goals. Summative judgements are made against these end goals using the following criteria: Working Well Below, Working Below, Nearly Secure, Secure and Greater Depth. We call these point-in-time assessments ‘professional judgements’.
A robust cycle of monitoring is set out at the start of the academic year and developed in collaboration with teaching staff to address any necessary workload issues and promote transparency. Our monitoring is conducted in several different ways including: book scrutinies, lesson observations and/or learning walks and by speaking to staff and/or pupils. We prioritise the latter and adopt Pupil Book Study as our primary monitoring approach.
Pupil Book Study is a window into the lived experience of pupils, as opposed to just the observed experience. It is a systematic toolkit to evaluate the impact of the curriculum through studying teaching and learning. Infused with cognitive science research and evidence-informed practice, it offers the the tools to explain why things are as they are and presents solutions to the areas that limit or hinder progress.
Pupil progress reviews are conducted half termly (formative) and termly (summative). This process provides the SLT, Governors and Subject Leaders with an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the quality of education in our school.
All of this information is gathered and reviewed and used to inform further curriculum innovation and developments and provision is adapted accordingly.
