At Peninsula East Primary Academies, we are passionate that the children are at the heart of our curriculum and learning opportunities are both innovative and inclusive. It has been carefully designed to enable the depth and breadth of the national curriculum to be explored through the transdisciplinary themes of the IB PYP framework and carefully interleaves the wider range of subjects, ensuring not only a clear sequence of learning but that the children are able to retain key facts and knowledge into their long term memory. A key aspect is to help children develop their understanding of being a Global learner as their international mindedness is developed, and how they can make a positive contribution to their community and the wider society. The curriculum celebrates the diversity and utilises the skills, knowledge and cultural wealth of the community while supporting the children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, ensuring that children are well prepared for life in modern Britain and as Global Citizens. The IB Learner Profiles are an integral part in developing the whole child and are embedded within the ethos and values of our schools. Our children learn through relevant and purposeful contexts, building upon prior learning and our curriculum promotes this by being challenging, engaging and motivating to all pupils, fostering a real thirst for knowledge that we want them to take with them as they move into their secondary schools and beyond.
Our EYFS, Key stage 1 and 2 bespoke curriculum is planned collaboratively across both schools with each member of staff mapping out their appropriate curriculum frameworks (the Primary National Curriculum) through the transdisciplinary themes of the IB.
Transdisciplinary themes for the year are:
- Who we are
- Where we are in place and time
- How we express ourselves
- How the world works
- How we organize ourselves
- Sharing the planet
We initially map out the National Curriculum skills under the transdisciplinary themes to ensure complete coverage for the children by the time they leave us in Year 6. This also allows us to guarantee that no skills outside of each year group are repeated at any one time; if there are similarities between the teachings of inquiries, we collaboratively plan to make sure that there is always progression between what has been taught previously. Furthermore, the nature of collaborative planning supports teachers to create opportunities for inquiries to explore the national curriculum and because teachers plan collectively they can utilise teachers’ subject strengths. We then focus on the key and related concepts, presenting these to our children so that they can lead the learning through their interests and questions and help us to formulate a central idea. Once formed, teachers collate key questions from the children in order to plan engaging learning opportunities which also allow for the coverage of the skills within the National curriculum.
Our planning and timetabling of the school day are both flexible, allowing staff and children to explore and inquire without losing any momentum. If needed, teachers can choose to teach discrete lessons to ensure curriculum coverage but we aim to interleave subjects as much as possible, ensuring a breadth and depth of knowledge and a clear sequence of learning. The teachers are skilled in ensuring that prior knowledge is built upon and referred back to where appropriate so that the children can make the links between what they have learnt and develop their long term memories.
In order to ensure pupils are globally aware and internationally minded, as part of our curriculum we also teach the children about the sustainable development goals. This teaches them about the wider world and the impact that each person can have, giving them an opportunity to make a difference to the lives of others. Our children will be part of local projects with each class having a local link, such as to old peoples homes, local farmers and so on, so we can build upon our links to the local community and so that the children learn about their local area and the impact it has on their lives. Through having our own allotment, we can sell our produce at cut prices to our families and through Enterprise projects, the children can contribute earnings into events such as the Year 6 Residential trip – this not only helps our children to see how they can impact on their own lives but also makes the learning purposeful and meaningful to our children.
For Maths, we predominantly use the White rose planning documents to ensure progression of skills across the school and where possible make links to the children’s inquiries. Whilst these plans are used, teachers are allowed the flexibility to change the order of units if necessary to meet the children’s needs. We use the Concrete, Pictorial and Abstract approach consistently throughout the school, allowing our children to be able to manipulate the maths and visualize it, which not only helps to transfer knowledge to long term memory but also helps them to have a concrete understanding of mathematical concepts. We believe that children should talk about their maths continually throughout the lessons being able to explore mathematical language and to problem solve collaboratively as well as developing independent skills. Fluency is a key focus ensuring they build upon prior knowledge and make links between skills already learnt – we interleave fluency, problem solving and reasoning in our lessons as we believe that all children should have access to these throughout a maths lesson and use high-quality and carefully planned questioning.
Music is taught as a discrete subject, provided to the school by a specialist teacher from Medway. We also offer a wide range of extra-curricular clubs which further enrich the learning opportunities for the children across both schools.
The curriculum will be delivered by:
- Teachers who have good knowledge of all subjects
- Teachers present subject matter clearly and they check learners’ understanding systematically, identify misconceptions accurately and provide clear, direct feedback.
- Teachers respond and adapt their teaching as necessary.
At consistent points throughout the term, all staff will be given opportunities to reflect on the last unit of inquiry and feedback on what went well, what did not go well and how this will impact on future learning throughout the rest of the academic year. Additionally, all teachers use a feedback form throughout each day so they can evaluate the learning, what they need to do next and any areas of focus – this will be blended with the use of the SOLO taxonomy and teachers will also use this to assess the learning at the end of a term. We believe that children should be given continuous feedback throughout the school day in order to move their learning on and so they know the next steps for improvement and this should mainly be through verbal interactions built into the school day – this also ensures that they can make links between their learning. As part of this feedback, the children will be able to reflect on the IB Learner Profile attributes against the work they have completed. During each term, staff will use short Google quizzes to track their progress and understanding against what they have been learning and so we can review the gaps that need to be filled in order for them to progress further.
Through our curriculum implementation as stated above our children will become;
- Learners who develop detailed knowledge and skills across the curriculum and, as a result, achieve well and which is reflected in results from national tests
- Learners who are ready for the next stage of education
- Learners who will have fully rounded characters with a clear understanding of complex values linked to PYP Learner Attributes
- Learners who have an enjoyment of the curriculum promoting achievement, confidence and independence.
- Pupils who regularly have the opportunity to showcase learning through school based and external events, performances and competitions.
- Learners who become global citizens and who are inquisitive and develop life skills for the future.
