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The Winchcombe School

Improving As One

Learning

Improving as One

What is our Philosophy?

At the Winchcombe School we provide a progressive and connected curriculum which develops long term retention of key subject knowledge, which is sequential and builds the foundations for the next steps in learning. We believe it is about what has been learned and not just what has been taught. We recognise that every child’s learning journey is individual and provide a curriculum that is appropriate to the needs and abilities of all our children within a safe, happy and secure environment.

Equipped with this sequential knowledge, we aim for every child to become a reflective learner, willing to take risks and see mistakes as a way of improving. We want to challenge our children to use their knowledge to become curious and independent learners, able to adapt to any situation and communicate effectively.   At the Winchcombe School we pride ourselves in providing a highly inclusive education and supporting our families within our local community.

What is taught?

Our curriculum is designed to link learning throughout our school, within and across year groups and through subjects. It incorporates the full range of National curriculum subjects, providing breadth and opportunities to deepen thinking. We believe that developing key vocabulary is fundamental to enabling children to connect and build upon prior learning.

Social, emotional, moral and cultural development is fostered through engaging and enriching opportunities both within and outside subject teaching.

Children are taught the importance of being part of our diverse community, showing respect, responsibility and tolerance, underpinned by our values

How is it taught?

In order to effectively implement the revised curriculum in the classroom, a structure for high quality responsive teaching has been created with a clear programme for professional development for all staff (see below). 

 

The Journey of our Curriculum

In 2015, The Winchcombe School started to follow The Cornerstones Curriculum. By introducing it we felt that we were able to deliver an enriching, topic-based approach which provided a broad and balanced curriculum linked to the National Curriculum.

In 2019, we began a comprehensive curriculum review. Based upon our developing vision and beliefs, we aimed to create a more knowledge rich, connected curriculum to help all our children to learn more, know more, and remember more. At the same time, we considered enhancing our curriculum through enrichment opportunities to build cultural capital, celebrate the diversity of our school community and foster our values.

                                                         

In reviewing our curriculum, we looked carefully at what we were teaching through the Cornerstones projects and made deliberate choices as to which parts we continued to use and which parts we adapted. Each subject area was analysed in terms of National Curriculum coverage, key knowledge (factual, procedural and conceptual) and the sequence of learning objectives. Connections were made within and across subjects, terms and year groups, with a strong focus on key vocabulary.

       

                 

As a result of this, the progressive learning for each term in each year has been developed around a central topic. Cornerstones is now being used as a valuable resource, particularly for History and Geography teaching. There is an Art and Design, a Design and Technology, a Music and a Computing project each term. Science is taught discretely with cross curricular links being made to enrich and connect our curriculum wherever possible. Religious Education (RE), Physical Education (PE), Personal Social Health and Emotional (PSHE) and Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) are all taught using published schemes as a starting point for planning and delivery. The English curriculum drives reading and writing opportunities across the rest of the curriculum. We follow a mastery approach to the teaching of Mathematics. At the same time, we pride ourselves in adding breadth to our curriculum through enrichment opportunities and embrace our local community. We endeavour to meet the needs of all of our children and ensure that we adapt our curriculum to challenge and support the needs of all our learners in order for everyone to improve.

The revised curriculum documents have been in use from the start of the academic year 2020-21. Time has been spent devising new Medium Term Flows of Learning; planning and mapping the teaching of each subject in sequenced chunks. This has led to short term unit plans to ensure high quality responsive delivery of The Winchcombe School curriculum offer.

                                                                   

                

Alongside this, subject leads have continued to strengthen our assessed curriculum through the development of Key Knowledge and Subject Milestones documents for each subject. These now provide the criteria for making more robust judgements. 

During the last academic year, 2020-2021, we introduced the Winchcombe Responsive Teaching Model (RPT). There was a strong focus on checking for understanding element of the RPT, particularly in the explaining and modelling stage of teaching.

For this academic year, 2021 -2022, we are focussing on retrieval task design to help children gain and retain more key knowledge. This will lead to gaps being closed and rigorous judgements being made across all subjects.  

More detailed information on our curriculum can be accessed through using the links below.

Curriculum Overviews

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please also view our Recovery Curriculum here.