Curriculum Statement
Intent
At CGPS, we want our children to thrive in life and believe they can change the world. Our curriculum is designed to equip the children with the knowledge, skills and understanding that will enable them to look at the world through different perspectives.
Underpinned by our Core Values, our curriculum empowers pupils to take their curiosity to new places and make a positive difference to society now and in the future. The curriculum helps pupils to be ambitious and proud of who they are; to believe in themselves. They will continue to strive to be the best they can be, standing tall and proud and reaching for the sky, knowing that learning has no limits.
Curriculum Design
We have designed a coherent, well sequenced, ambitious curriculum, starting with our EYFS provision through to Year 6. It includes not only the formal requirements of the National Curriculum and the statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, but also the elements that we believe are essential to provide growth and enrichment for our pupils at Catton Grove to achieve their potential.
The design of our curriculum is evidence-based and driven by research findings of cognitive science and evidence-led principles and practices that aim to lead to excellence in the classroom. Each subject is led by at least one Subject Champion. These leaders have a clear vision of the progression within their subject and the key skills and knowledge of the child’s journey through the school in their subject. They are champions for their subjects and are constantly refining the learning, as we believe the work of curriculum development should be a never-ending journey to ensure it is meeting the needs of every child.
Speech, Language, and Communication
We have high expectations in speech, language, and communication as we understand how important this is in strengthening children’s ability to think at a deeper level, articulate their learning and demonstrate an application of skills and knowledge. We are committed members of the Communication Champion Project which aims to support early speech and language development to give children the skills they need to communicate inside and outside school, now and in the future. As a result of our commitment to Speech and Language, we ensure that all children as they enter Nursery undergo a Wellcomm Screening and are supported by intervention or an onward Speech and Language referral if needed. We have a Speech and Language team within the school who work with children, particularly in the EYFS stage, identifying and supporting the needs of those with identified speech and language difficulties.
Physical and Mental Wellbeing
As a school we prioritise the physical and mental wellbeing of our children. Children in Nursery and Reception have access to our outside learning environment throughout the day and our dedicated PE Department ensures our children receive 2 hours of Physical Education every week from Year 1 upwards. We also have a Music Department, allowing all children the opportunity to develop their musical knowledge and skills through weekly music lessons taught by specialist music instructors.
We know that children learn best when their emotional needs are being addressed and they feel happy and safe. We have a number of ELSA trained TAs working across the school, alongside a Pastoral Support Assistant who all work to support the emotional needs of our pupils. We have designated ‘calm’ spaces in school for children to regulate their emotions.
Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Education
We aim to prepare the children to make a positive contribution to their community and the wider society. The children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding is woven through both our Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds curriculum but also through other areas of the curriculum too. Each month of the school year is dedicated to one of our eleven Core Values and throughout this month the children are taught, through assemblies, about the Core Value, its importance in their life and are given a challenge to put that core value into practice. In developing the ‘character’ of children, a high school profile is given to demonstrating acts of kindness. This is celebrated each week through the Headteacher’s Hot Chocolate Award.
Diversity
We celebrate and welcome diversity within our school community. We respect each other, ourselves and the world around us. We passionately seek to actively open the window on the world, educating our children about cultures and people they might not have heard of, particularly in a catchment area that is predominantly white British in ethnicity. One of the ways we do this is through our “Meanwhile Elsewhere” assemblies that teach our children that whilst there are certain historical events we have learnt about, there are other equally important but often lesser-known stories or histories happening for other people, sometimes in other parts of the world.
Implementation
Subject learning journeys
Each subject is mapped out on a Subject Curriculum journey , these are used by the children to remind them of the journey in each subject as they move through the school.
Long term planning
Our long-term plans identify the powerful knowledge, big ideas (concepts), key vocabulary, misconceptions and where appropriate enquiry questions within each unit of each subject. This allows teachers to easily identify the core knowledge and skills required in each unit that our learners need to be successful.
Medium term planning
Medium term plans are in place to ensure that the knowledge and skills for each subject are taught progressively and appropriately throughout the unit and across the year so the stepping stones of learning are built upon year by year. Teachers use these medium-term plans to design sequences of lessons that cover the appropriate skills in an engaging and exciting way.
Effective conditions for learning
Teachers ensure the classroom environment is a positive one by ensuring they set ‘effective conditions for learning’ each day. Explicitly we make children feel welcomed and valued each day and we aim to create a culture of enthusiastic, engaged learners who enjoy experimenting and taking risks. We have developed a specific whole school learning unit taught at the beginning of the year, where children research the function of the brain to understand its capacity for growth. They develop a toolbox of strategies that can be used as part of a growth mindset approach to learning. Part of this growth mindset is that children appreciate the importance of giving things a go and knowing that by making mistakes this is when new learning can occur.
This informed and practical approach to ‘learning how to learn’ is part of a school expectation that children will develop resilience and accept responsibility for their own learning and work independently. Some children require additional support, where appropriate, but with the aim of moving towards independence not dependence. Praise and encouragement is used regularly to motivate children and teachers promote positive behaviour by modelling positive communication.
Quality First Teaching
We focus on the development of high-quality teaching across the school through prioritised CPD both short and long term. Across all curriculum areas, teachers are expected to plan stimulating, interesting lessons, under the leadership of the Year Leader, to engage pupils and inspire them to learn.
Teachers use questioning and provide clear models and explanations with steps to success. The emphasis is on what the pupils are learning, not what they are doing. Teachers and pupils (where appropriate) check understanding against the use of clear and shared Success Criteria matched to the learning focus.
Teachers prioritise the explanation and modelling phase of lessons and use ‘I do, we do, you do’ / ‘My turn, our turn, your turn’ and ‘Think Alouds’ to ensure children understand the learning before moving on to practising the new learning independently.
Teachers use the "Think-Pair-Share" model to give pupils more individual processing time before discussing the question. This encourages deeper engagement with the learning and a chance for everyone to articulate their thinking.
Teachers refer to and make connections to prior knowledge from previous years as they are aware of the previous learning over time through the use of our Subject Learning Journeys.
Our curriculum is designed to meet the needs of our pupils here at Catton Grove, scaffolds are provided where necessary and new knowledge is chunked to support working memory.
Staff use a variety of strategies to check pupil understanding before, during and after lessons to identify misconceptions and provide interventions where necessary. We celebrate mistakes and use a number of growth mindset strategies to create a safe space for children to learn and take risks with their learning.
Deliberate vocabulary development
Deliberate vocabulary development is an approach used by teachers to teach pre-planned vocabulary to pupils, providing them with a deeper, more lasting understanding of words and enabling them to spell, pronounce, use them correctly and store them for future use. Strategies for teaching vocabulary include saying, defining, using, and retrieving words in context.
Knowledge Organisers
These documents are used in targeted subjects to convey the essential knowledge and key vocabulary which we intend for the children to know by the end of the unit. These knowledge organisers are used throughout the unit and form the basis of the summative assessment quizzes.
Assessment
Formative assessments are used as an ongoing assessment tool during lessons. These opportunities allow teachers to identify gaps in knowledge, misconceptions and where knowledge may not be embedded. This is discussed in Year Team Planning meetings with teaching teams making adaptations to medium term planning accordingly to best meet the needs of children during units of work. Teachers use ‘in the moment feedback’ and adaptations to planning to address misconceptions as they arise and children also receive written feedback in books to help them achieve the next step in their learning. Children are encouraged to identify and fix any mistakes through built in editing time.
Deep Dive Cycles
We are committed to ongoing improvement across the curriculum. Subject leaders have a regular planned cycle of activity to monitor, evaluate and share both good practice and areas for development with teachers quickly so that CPD can be devised and improved practice can get into classrooms as soon as is feasible.
Impact
The design of the curriculum ensures that the needs of individual and small groups of children can be met through adaptive Quality First teaching, supported by targeted, proven interventions where appropriate. We measure the impact of our curriculum by reviewing the following:
Learning behaviours
Evidence is gathered to check the quantity and quality of engagement of children with their learning and to ensure they feel safe to try new things out as well as to ensure that expectations of behaviour are high and that children are taking pride in contributing to a high-quality learning environment.
Subject Deep Dives
Subject leaders monitor individual subjects: reviewing learning in action, talking to children about their learning with their books, providing individual feedback to move practice forward, celebrating strengths and highlighting areas of development that can be addressed as a whole staff group. Deep Dives are carefully planned beforehand so that the focus group of children are identified for a reason and that different hypotheses can be devised and tested with well matched questions during pupil interviews. This approach is to ensure Subject Champions develop a detailed overview of the journey of their subject as well as a tight focus on impact and the understanding of the why as well as the what.
Summative Assessment
Summative assessment takes place in the form of end of unit quizzes, extended questions and more formal termly NFER Assessments or past SATs papers for Core Subjects in KS2.
Learning is measured through the analysis of learners’ application of skills, acquisition of knowledge and depth of thinking. As a school teaching staff we are currently working to develop more consistently around the creation of foundation subject quizzes with a layered approach to questions to ensure they capture depth as well as surface knowledge and are also inclusive for all levels of learners.
Data Analysis
Data is regularly inputted and analysed on our school assessment system, Pupil Asset. Following each Whole School data analysis Year Leaders meet with their year team to create Year Group Action plans and respond to the needs of any groups of pupils who may need additional support or intervention. The SLT also analyse the data to spot trends and patterns, underperformance, the rate of progress of different groups and cohorts and attainment projections, regularly reporting them to the Governing Body. Year Group Action Plans are then reviewed with Year leaders supported by SLT to ensure the full capacity of the school is being used as well as the right interventions to best impact achievement.
Written and reviewed by Claire Shenton – Deputy Headteacher September 2025