A proud member of

Curriculum Overview

Curriculum Leader:  L Armitage

 

Intent

Due to the context and demographic area that our school is situated in (0.01% most deprived constituency in England), we know that it is key for our children to embed a knowledge-rich curriculum with retrieval practice being a key thread throughout.

At King’s Meadow Academy, we want to create a school community full of happy children who are confident, independent and thoughtful. Our school is a beacon rooted in the community, providing a signpost for those who need it. Our school is a very special place, having been the beating heart of our community in Kinsley for nearly a century. Preparing our pupils for life in an ever-changing world, developing curious, well-rounded individuals who are determined to succeed is of paramount importance to us all.

Every day, our children will practice our school rules and values with activities throughout the curriculum:

Our school rules: Ready, Respectful and Safe

Our school values:  Kind. Motivate. Aspire. Achieve.

Our 8 KMA pillars help us to achieve our values. To be kind, motivated, aspiring and to achieve, we need to do the following every day:
Concentrate, Work Hard, Understand Others, Improve, Don’t Give Up, Imagine, Push Yourself and Try New Things

 

Subject leaders throughout school are being supported by a robust monitoring cycle through the year to ensure that the foundation stage subjects are implemented effectively and pupils make rapid progress and secure their knowledge and understanding ready for their move to secondary school.

 

KMA Curriculum aims:

  • Provide a knowledge rich, stimulating and connected curriculum, making clear connections of concepts across the curriculum to ensure our pupils have a depth of understanding in all subjects.
  • Develop pupils to have lively, enquiring minds and apply themselves to tasks and skills effectively
  • Help pupils acquire knowledge in every subject area, providing them with the skills that are relevant to support them in adult life and employment in an every fast-changing world.
  • Provide opportunities for all our pupils to learn and achieve, irrespective of social background, culture, gender, differences in abilities and disabilities

Implementation

King’s Meadow Academy follow the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage Framework’ in our Reception class and the National Curriculum from Years 1 to 6.

 

parents-complete-guide-to-the-new-national-curriculum

 

KMA Curriculum model

Heart of the curriculum

  • School vision and pillars
  • All subjects
  • Leadership
  • Purpose

Components of our curriculum that make it unique

  • Strong connection to our community
  • Learning environment
  • Connection between subjects

All children study the full requirements of the national curriculum across all core and foundation subjects.  This ensures cultural capital is developed through the acquisition of knowledge, skills and understanding.

 

We follow the Kapow Primary scheme for the following subjects:

 

  • Science
  • Geography
  • History
  • Art
  • Design and Technology                                                                   
  • Computing
  • Religious Education
  • RSE & PSHE
  • Music
  • MFL (Spanish)

 

Why Kapow Primary?

Kapow Primary:

  • covers the full national curriculum and has options for mixed-age classes
  • is knowledge-rich and builds skills – lesson plans deepen pupil knowledge and extend vocabulary and include varied and enjoyable recap and retrieval opportunities
  • subject planning – carefully sequenced, cohesive curriculum with a clear rationale created by specialists with guidance for subject leaders
  • diverse and inclusive resources – Videos, interactive presentations, knowledge organisers, songs, quizzes, assessment materials and more
  • CPD – develop, broaden and up-skill your practice and subject knowledge with 1,000’s of short guidance videos and regular webinars
A spiral curriculum

Kapow Primary’s scheme of work has been designed as a spiral curriculum with the following key principles in mind:

 

Cyclical: Pupils return to the same disciplinary and substantive concepts during their time in primary

school.

 

Increasing depth: Each time a concept is revisited, it is covered with greater complexity.

 

Prior knowledge: Upon returning to each concept, prior knowledge is utilised so pupils can build on

previous foundations, rather than starting again.

 

Kapow’s scheme of work is organised into units consisting of predominately six lessons. Within each unit, lessons must be taught in order as they build upon one another.

 

We have adapted the Kapow’s scheme of work in some subject areas, to take account of the context of our school and King’s Meadow Academy’s pupils’ interests and needs.

 

These are as follows:

 

History: Key Stage 1 – The Great Fire of London / Lower Key Stage 2 – The impact of coal mining in Kinsley / Upper Key Stage 2 – How did the Maya civilisation compare with Anglo-Saxons?

 

The Kapow scheme of work fulfils the statutory requirements for outlined in The National curriculum (2014), the Curriculum Framework for RE (we have ensured that this matches the Wakefield RE Syllabus and the Relationship and Health Education Framework for RSHE.

 

PE – we follow the Wakefield Trinity PE scheme of work

 

 

Assessment in foundation subjects

Formative assessment

Every lesson begins with the ‘Recap and recall’ or ‘Fast Five’ section which is intended to allow pupils retrieval practice of key knowledge relevant to the upcoming lesson. This section also provides teachers with an opportunity to make informal judgements about whether pupils have retained prior learning and are ready to move on.

 

Each lesson contains the ‘Assessing progress and understanding’ section which helps teachers to identify those pupils who are secure in their learning or working at a greater depth in each lesson. These assessments are then recorded on the assessment grid sheets, at the end of each unit, which supports the teacher in identifying gaps in learning amongst the class or for individual pupils.

 

Summative assessment

The disciplinary strands are assessed using a ‘Skills catcher’ at the end of each unit. This requires children to draw upon their disciplinary knowledge in order to respond to an outcome task, such as the one shown here.

 

For some subjects, each disciplinary concept is assessed at least once by the end of Key stage 1 and once by the end of Key stage 2 using skills. Skills catchers provide teachers with a record of summative assessment as evidence of progression from Key stage 1 to Key stage 2. It is suggested that teachers keep the Skills catchers as children move through Primary school so that subject leaders have a record of children’s learning.

 

Substantive concepts and topic knowledge begin being assessed using an end of unit quiz in Year 2 Spring term and continue to be assessed throughout Key stage 2 units. These units also have formal written assessments available to assess substantive concepts.

LONG TERM PLANS

Using the National Curriculum 2014, we have produced progressive knowledge and skills in each area of the curriculum so that there are clear steps of progress from EYFS to Year 6 over a 2 yearly cycle

. 
Translate »
×