The Curriculum at Shakespeare Infant School

Our Curriculum Intention

Shakespeare Infant School offers a broad, balanced and fully inclusive curriculum for our young children.  We ensure that reading and language acquisition play a central part and that every child has the opportunity to leave us with confidence and independence, knowing that their opinions and ideas matter.

Our curriculum is ambitious and progressive.  It is planned well and sequenced towards clearly defined end points for each pupil, in each subject.   It provides focused opportunities for all children to have rich, memorable, awe inspiring experiences that are developed around the needs and interests of the whole child. The mental health and wellbeing of our children is also of high importance.  This is supported throughout the whole curriculum in the way in which it is delivered and by making very good use of our extensive grounds, pond and woodland areas. 

We aim to equip our children with the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed as educated citizens within an ever changing world.   Strong core values enable them to thrive, be safe and do the very best they can.  Our curriculum promotes positive behaviours and relationships and an enjoyment of learning new knowledge and skills taking an interest in the world around them and contributing positively to our local community and beyond. 

Implementation

Our integrated curriculum is unique to Shakespeare Infant School.  It puts learning at the centre of everything.  Leaders at all levels ensure that our curriculum is pupil centred, fluid and personalised by the whole school team.  It is adapted and refreshed each year to address needs and gaps in skills and knowledge depending on each new cohort.  It embraces a number of different approaches ensuring our children acquire and build up their knowledge through easily transferrable skills. 

Our children begin their integrated curriculum journey in EYFS and embark upon a trajectory towards expertise and success.  A recursive curriculum is integral to this success in monitoring whether knowledge has been retained in the long term memories and joined up thinking of our children.  Over time, all pupils embed and use knowledge fluently from a range of subjects. 

Our SIS curriculum is planned through projects which integrate subjects to ensure it is meaningful and purposeful with first hand experiences.  These projects enable children to make connections and links over and over again.  Some subjects are taught discretely e.g. Maths, RE, Computing and phonics however we endeavour to integrate knowledge and skills where possible.  Maths skills may be integrated within a science activity and Art skills linked to a Historical event.  We also plan a variety of longitudinal studies such as daily weather observations and seasonal changes. 

Long term objectives from Development Matters (EYFS) and the National Curriculum (KS1) are coherently planned by leaders and teachers to ensure broad and balanced coverage and progression across the three year groups.  Our curriculum takes account of all the experiences our children have from the moment they arrive at school to the end of the day and beyond.  We help our children to learn to understand their emotions, be creative and work collaboratively with others to achieve better outcomes. 

Teachers make revisions and adapt planning regularly to provide effective experiences and lessons for all pupils to make effective progress from their own starting points. 

Subject leaders know what key vocabulary, knowledge and skills the children need to learn in order to achieve success and progress across a range of contexts.  Leaders use pupil conferencing, action planning, workbook scrutiny, learning walks, data and planning analysis and summative/formative assessment to check on understanding and inform further teaching.  This information is also used to plan for enrichment, cultural experiences, interventions, additional support, challenge and mastery for all groups of children.  We have high expectations for our children to achieve expected end of year outcomes or beyond. 

Our Curriculum Learning Values

Our curriculum is underpinned by the promotion of six learning values and corresponding puppets:

independence, creativity, collaboration, spirituality, thinking and emotional intelligence

We believe these values develop crucial lifelong skills enabling our children to grow in confidence and independence.  They learn to work effectively with one another, appreciate the wonder of the world around them, and learn about their emotions knowing how to respond positively and empathetically to others.   We embed the idea that mistakes are viewed as an opportunity to improve, develop resilience and increase success through nurture, care and high expectations. 

Our learning values are carefully planned into our projects.  Thinking is an essential core learning value and is always a focal learning value in every project.  We then plan another learning value and corresponding puppet for particular projects so the children may be developing the knowledge and skills to become a successful historian alongside developing the skills needed to become a collaborative learner like Horis the Hedgehog. 

Each project is evaluated to identify where it has been successful and where improvements can be made. Different audiences, including parents, are often invited to the outcomes and have the opportunity, as do the children, to feedback which supports the planning and review process.  Projects are refreshed and sometimes replaced depending upon this review process. 

Mental health, mindfulness and wellbeing

SIS prioritises mental health and wellbeing of the whole school community. Staff and children are taught ways to ensure they keep themselves healthy in both body and mind. They have time to discuss their worries and time for relaxation, including age appropriate meditation and mindfulness sessions for thinking deeply and having time to “just be.” The school grounds, pond and woodland areas are used daily for children and staff to connect with nature. 

School has an up to date Mental Health First Aider, ELSA and a purposeful and useful mental health hub on the school website.  This support and focus have a positive effect on staff wellbeing, which in turn, ensures the best possible outcomes for our children.  School recognises that securing positive emotional development with all is key to success with both educational and pastoral outcomes. 

Outdoor learning

Throughout the school day we utilise many opportunities for planned and spontaneous outdoor learning so our children can explore and link what they are learning to the natural world wherever possible. They take part in regular, stimulating real life challenges such as gardening and building and often use the play trail and role play area to feed their imaginations.

We are currently making purposeful enhancements to our pond area and creating a sensory garden and all weather outdoor classroom space. (February 2021)  

Impact

Our pupil’s attainment and achievement has consistently been above the national expectations (see tables below) as our pupils become confident, knowledgeable learners who are well prepared for their next step in learning.  Our children leave SIS with a rich and wide range of experiences and happy memories which will impact on their future enthusiasm and motivation for lifelong learning. 

OUTCOMES

End of year outcomes can be found here: 

Email from a parent in the summer term 2019 having attended the expo at the end of the Titanic Tragedy project:

Dear Year 1 team

I just want to write to say thank you! I was hugely impressed with so many things I saw yesterday- I don't know where to start!

The children's manners were impeccable as always. It is such an important skill for them to be able to present their own learning to other people. They did brilliantly! All of the children I spoke with were very friendly.

I was particularly impressed with how much the children have learned. ******** has clearly enjoyed the topic and has been very keen to extend his learning at home but it was evident just how much learning has taken place by all children. The knowledge shared by the children was very good and they showed great excitement too! The trip to the Sea City Museum clearly added to this and the children who were presenting the photographs of this trip described their day fondly.

The range of presentations too was impressive. The dancing in the hall had me grinning from ear-to-ear- they were incredibly endearing! Then to see the Titanic diorama... WOW!

You clearly work very hard to make the learning incredibly exciting and relevant, and for that, I am truly thankful.

What a wonderful way to end the school year! Well done all!