At Martin Frobisher Infant School and Nursery our curriculum is designed with our children’s needs and interests at heart! All of our staff embrace Early Years and Infant Education and the research that underpins a child-lead, child-initiated curriculum, informed by the National Curriculum and The Early Years Foundation Stage Profile. With this always at the front of our minds, we plan and deliver a themed approach to teaching and learning. Our direct teaching is supported by high quality, purposeful provision which enables all of our learners to extend and embed their skills across the curriculum. We build on children’s prior learning, provide first hand learning experiences, support the children to develop interpersonal skills, build resilience, perseverance, independence and become creative, critical thinkers.
The work and opportunities that we provide for children and the way this is organised and presented to them is crucial for successful learning now and in the future. As such, the curriculum is a very important part of our school. We follow the National Curriculum 2014. We review our curriculum and the themes which we teach regularly because we want children to enjoy learning because it is relevant to them, linked to current events and to be inspired and motivated to learn new skills, knowledge and vocabulary.
Using our understanding of Rosenshine’s Principles and the working memory, our curriculum is designed in a way to help children learn and remember more. It has been carefully planned to ensure that any new learning builds on something the children already know. It ensures that the core concepts are woven throughout the year to ensure children can continually build on and review the key knowledge that they need to know and remember. Our curriculum is underpinned by the National Curriculum and the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile, and is well informed by research.
We structure our teaching with the following sequence:
- Review of prior learning - Every lesson will start with three questions: a question from last week, a question from last term and a question from last year. This is followed by a quick daily review to activate the required knowledge for the lesson.
- Modelling and scaffolding - The teacher will clearly model the small steps needed to develop carefully planned skills, knowledge and vocabulary. Teachers use an "I do, we do, you do" structure to ensure that children are well prepared to work independently. New vocabulary is directly taught, ensuring children develop a good understanding of key words.
- Guided practice - Children will have the opportunity to practice their new learning and consolidate their skills in meaningful tasks, supported by the teacher and other adults in the classroom.
- Independent practice - The children have the opportunity to practice the knowledge and skills they have gained independently in areas of provision. Provision areas give the children the opportunity to consolidate and review their learning so they can remember the key knowledge we want them to know.
OUR Curriculum Impact
Daily review
At Martin Frobisher, we understand the importance of the ‘testing effect’ (Rodeger and Karpicke). Therefore, lessons have a clear review point, with questions asked from the last lesson, from the last half term and the last year. A quick review happens in every lesson to ensure children are recalling their previous learning, ready for new learning to ‘hook on to’. In a unit, questions are carefully planned to ensure the correct knowledge is recalled and that the questions are linked to the substantive and disciplinary knowledge identified for the unit.
Weekly review
Alongside this, we have a weekly review of each subject. We have adapted the Leitner system to do this in a systematic and logical way. Each class has a display board for key vocabulary. At the end of a unit, all of the taught vocabulary, as identified on the lesson planning provided by the subject leader, will be added to the correct subject on the vocabulary wall. Each week, the children will review the key vocabulary. Once children demonstrate a consistently good understanding to the vocabulary, the word will move to a folder at the bottom of the board to be checked less frequently (half termly).
Summative assessment
At the end of a unit, a summative assessment task is planned in to give children the opportunity to show what they have learnt. Teachers then use this, alongside the information they have gathered about children’s understanding throughout the unit to say whether a child is working at the expected standard or not. Following this, interventions are planned to help children to catch up in the following half term.
