Our CURRICULUM

Welcome: The Curriculum at Ravenstone

Welcome to Ravenstone’s Curriculum page. Here you should find some information about what we teach at Ravenstone, how we teach at Ravenstone and some information about the experiences your child will have.

The heart of our learning: The Curriculum Intent

At the heart of our curriculum is our Intent. A curriculum ‘Intent’ is another way of outlining the purpose of everything we offer children at Ravenstone.

Essentially, we asked ourselves – what is the point of our curriculum at Ravenstone? As you will no doubt understand, this was a big question and needed careful exploration!

In essence, we feel that the curriculum offers THREE things. The first is that children can develop themselves – what we term OURSELVES. This relates to how our curriculum supports the development of children’s personal values, their morals, their mind-set and ensuring they are healthy, happy and enjoy school. It also covers their academic achievement. The second theme is EACH OTHER and covers how the curriculum develops the interaction between individual children and others around them. This includes the Ravenstone Values, the communication between children and the friendships which children forge with each other and their relationships with staff. The final strand is OUR FUTURE which refers to the development of children who are ready to take their place in society. This includes developing aspirations for the future and encompasses other aspects of the curriculum including the Ravenstone Entitlement and Community Spirit.

Pulling this together, we created the image you see. It is in line with values characters we already have and children should recognise it. It is displayed in all classes around the school. We are proud of the Intent as it stands and it is becoming part of our language we use in school. It is our intention that everything we teach will fit somewhere within it: either for Ourselves, Each Other or Our Future.

How the Curriculum Works Each Day

The Curriculum Organisation

At Ravenstone Primary School, what we teach is based on the September 2014 National Curriculum for Key Stages 1 & 2 and the Early Years framework in Nursery and Reception.

Our curriculum is delivered using a variety of schemes, teaching strategies and resources depending on the nature of the subject being taught and the needs of the children (for more details please refer to the separate subject handbooks).

What We Teach:

Our curriculum approach is based on the teaching of discrete subjects throughout the school week. This is evident in the curriculum timetables which are displayed in classes and in the medium term curriculum plans which we produce. We assume an approach to the curriculum which is comprehensive, broad and consistent with National Curriculum expectations. The subjects which form our curriculum are as follows:

English – both reading and writing
Maths
Science
PE, including a specialist Dance teacher
Music
History
Geography
Religious Education
Computing
PSHE and SRE
MFL (Italian)
Art and Design
Design Technology
Swimming

Schemes

To support the delivery of the curriculum, we use a number of teaching schemes which are outlined here:

When We Teach

Our curriculum is taught in clear timetables, which are year based and cover the full breadth of the curriculum.

Timetabling at Ravenstone – In each subject, we aim to teach in depth and to a degree which gives children a deeper understanding of the learning taking place in a lesson. However, in some cases subjects are taught in blocks which give children a chance to learn skills in great detail over a shorter period of time.

Subject Handbooks

Subjects at Ravenstone each have their own handbook which allows staff and families to explore how the subject is taught. These can be found on the following page: https://www.ravenstoneschool.co.uk/What-we-teach/

What we see in the teaching of our curriculum

Teaching of the curriculum at Ravenstone consistently includes the following features, of which more information can be found in our Teaching, Learning and Assessment policy:

A clear learning objective (LO) taken from Age Related Expectations for every lesson.

The LO is the skill or the knowledge that you plan for your pupils to acquire during the lesson.
A mastery approach to Maths, in which a ‘Three Task Approach’ is used for independent learning opportunities.
English is taught through high quality texts on which lessons are based.
Explicit Reading Lessons are taught as per the school’s Reading Handbook.
High quality modelling is evident in the work of the teacher.
Encouragement of engagement from all children by consistent use of talk partners and open-ended questioning.
Encouragement of resilience and a growth mind-set, helping children to stay positive and learn from their mistakes.
Encouragement via the application of the Ravenstone Values.
Use of vocabulary displays in all classes.
Mini-plenaries throughout learning – to assess progress and provide opportunities to address misconceptions.
Clear plenaries to review and reflect on learning.
High expectations – always pitching learning high and in line with the year group’s National Curriculum requirements, while providing appropriate scaffolding and support as appropriate.
High expectations of presentation in all books.
Focus/peer/self-marking opportunities to consolidate learning, address misconceptions and provide clarity on next steps (as set out in the marking and feedback policy).
High expectations of behaviours for learning – with appropriate rewards and sanctions (set out in the behaviour policy) – so that every child aspires to succeed.

How We Assess

Age-Related Expectation (ARE) and the National Curriculum:

ARE booklets provide information for parents/carers on the end of year expectations for children in our school. The National Curriculum outlines these expectations as being the minimum requirements your child should meet each year. Our curriculum mirrors this. All the objectives are focused on throughout the year as part of a child’s lessons and learning. Every teacher assesses children against these standards and parents are informed if their child is not on track to reach the end of year expectations at the end of every term. We do this so parents can support and understand their child's progress.

As the curriculum is taught at Ravenstone, staff are trusted to assess their pupils on an ongoing basis, this will be done both in class, through monitoring of books, discussion with pupils, testing and liaising with parents and other professionals. Assessments are made four times in the academic year – in each case based on the content of the school curriculum taught thus far in the year - and are supplemented at the end of the year with a National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) test.

Tracking - Tracking is used to inform class teachers and leaders on how children are progressing against their starting points and age related expectations. This in turn allows teachers to tailor medium term planning and lesson design.

Staff use the whole school excel based tracking system to track pupils progress. This system is based on this fundamental principle; the system is based on continuous assessment that allows for staff to track if pupils are on track to be 1: greater depth 2: at 3: just below or 4: well below age related expectations by the end of the year. Staff meet with senior leaders after each assessment window and the progress of children is discussed.

Attainment – our definitions are as follows:

Stage	Definition
At Greater depth – Graded as a 1	If pupils have demonstrated that they have learnt and can apply the content for their age group (by the end of the year) and can use these skills independently with ease to make links, investigate and deepen the content within the curriculum they will be assessed as at greater depth. This will equate to a scaled score of 110 on the NFER tests in Key Stage 2.
At Age Related Expectations – Graded as a 2	If pupils have demonstrated that they have learnt and can apply the majority of content for their age group (by the end of the year) they will be assessed as at age related standard. This will equate to a scaled score of 100 on the NFER tests in Key Stage 2.
Just Below – Graded as a 3	If pupils have demonstrated that they have learnt certain aspects of the content for their age group (by the end of the year) but do not show confidence to apply these consistently or independently they will be assessed as just below an age-related standard. This will equate to a scaled score of 90-100 on the NFER tests in Key Stage 2.
Well below – Graded a 4	If pupils cannot demonstrate the demands of the curriculum for their age group they will be deemed as well below age related standard. This will equate to a scaled score of below 90 on the NFER tests in Key Stage 2.These children will have individualised targets to demonstrate progress.

Progress - All pupils will be expected to make good progress throughout their time in every year group.

Further Information:

If you have any queries or questions about our curriculum, please speak to Mr Whitehead.

deputyhead@ravenstone.wandsworth.sch.uk