Our Curriculum
Curriculum Intent at Martello
As a school supporting an increasingly diverse community, it is our responsibility to enable each and every individual to achieve their best, both academically and personally. This diversity brings a richness to our school which we celebrate and capitalise on. The curriculum offered at Martello significantly prioritises reading, mathematical fluency and oracy in writing as essential skills in accessing the full curriculum offer and success for all. As part of the Turner Trust, the school has worked together with curriculum leaders to create an ambitious and progressive curriculum to meet the needs of our unique Martello Primary community.
Children build essential building blocks over time based on their individual starting points. Learning uses high quality resources and thoughtful and thought provoking tasks through knowledge rich content. We strive to help children think, to be curious and enquiring; overcoming barriers and challenges with courage and resilience.
Essential to our curriculum is learning to be a kind and compassionate human. Children learn about connection, about each other, themselves and the broad and diverse world around them. At Martello, we respect the individual and learn about healthy minds, bodies and relationships and how to be safe.
Intent
Our curriculum content and delivery:
Provides a broad and balanced education, incorporating the full range of discrete National Curriculum subjects.
Provides opportunities for deep learning leading to high quality outcomes.
Enables pupils to develop knowledge, understand concepts and acquire skills that will enable and inspire them to succeed in life, particularly in the next stage of their education
Ensures that there are ambitious expectations for all learners, irrespective of their background and additional needs, enabling them to fulfil their potential.
Equips pupils with core skills which they can identify and apply independently to a range of situations across the whole curriculum and in their wider lives.
Fosters a love of reading through immersion in a range of high quality books, both during teacher directed learning and during continuous provision learning time.
Encourages children’s confidence in speaking and oracy, recognising the importance of talking underpinning thinking
Promotes our school ethos and values in order to support pupils’ personal and social development, putting ‘respect’ at the core of their conduct and relationships.
Nurtures pupils’ physical and mental health, particularly their resilience, equipping them with the skills and knowledge to maintain good health throughout their lives.
Enables pupils’ creativity to flourish through a wide range of learning opportunities and teaching methods.
Promotes a love of learning, encouraging pupils to become curious, inquiring and independent learners with ‘broader horizons’ and high aspirations for their futures.
Nurtures the talents of every child, developing culturally literate pupils who love to learn and are curious about the world around them, through teaching a range of exciting and creative lessons.
For children with complex and profound special educational needs and disabilities, the curriculum offer is adapted and personalised to meet targets identified on EHCPs and provision plans.
Curriculum Implementation at Martello
Implementation
Turner Expert Teaching Principles underpin effective curriculum implementation, with a strong focus on modelling, explanations and questioning
Teachers are supported to develop their pedagogical content knowledge across the curriculum to provide challenge and accessibility for all
Some of the knowledge content is specifically designed/ modified to reflect the local context and the expertise and interests of teaching staff.
Vocabulary instruction across the curriculum enables pupils to learn tier 2/ subject specific vocabulary, supporting enhanced comprehension and cultural capital.
This content is used as the vehicle for developing both subject specific skills and ‘core’ skills, as well as extending and deepening knowledge.
Curriculum overviews ensure that there is an appropriate progression of skills and content within each subject, with opportunities for consolidation of prior learning through carefully planned retrieval practice, including via weekly and termly home learning tasks.
Where relevant, we apply the maths mastery ‘fluency, reasoning and problem-solving approach’ to other subjects/topics. This involves the children learning key subject content, thinking more analytically and deeply about this content and then applying the acquired knowledge and skills.
The ‘Talk for Writing’ units are derived from the whole class reading book and there is a strong emphasis on disciplinary literacy skills in other non core subjects.
The mathematics curriculum broadly follows the ‘White Rose’ scheme. However, maths skills are carefully mapped and consolidated through other subjects, particularly science and geography.
A range of teaching strategies are employed to actively engage all pupils, including talk partners, white boards, choral response routines and collaborative group learning.
A variety of methods for recording learning are used: artwork, models, photographs, mind-maps, charts, tables, graphs, writing in role, presentations, comic strips, films, animations etc.
A consistent approach to whole class and individualised feedback has been embedded that supports pupils to address misconceptions and gaps in knowledge and consolidate learning.
Quality over quantity: there is a focus on learning smaller aspects of a subject area in depth, in order to produce fewer but higher-quality pieces of work.
At the end of each topic, classes partner with a class from a different year group in order to celebrate share
Parental engagement is maximised through an annual topic-based presentation to parents, termly ‘Get Involved’ events including Parent Reading Workshops.
Children with high levels of additional need are able to access the school’s Specialist Resource Provision to support their personalised learning, for example, as detailed on individual EHCPs
Impact
The impact of the curriculum is monitored in a number of ways:
The curriculum overviews for each unit of work provide the framework for curriculum delivery but the formative and summative assessment carried out by teachers informs precise teaching of individual groups of children to ensure that their needs are being effectively met.
Strategic Quality Assurance is led by the Primary Improvement Team and leaders on a regular and termly basis in order to continually improve practice. This involves lesson observations, learning walks, book and planning scrutiny and pupil voice interviews. SLT also monitors books from across the curriculum on a regular basis. This enables school leaders to evaluate whether the curriculum is fit for purpose and whether it is being delivered in a way that matches our curriculum intent.
All members of teaching staff contribute to termly pupil progress meetings to analyse pupil progress, focusing in particular on disadvantaged pupils. This gives staff an opportunity to review and modify curriculum content, including any targeted interventions, in order to effectively meet the needs of all pupils and close any attainment gap.
Data analysis by SLT at the end of seasonal terms tracks the progress of different groups of children, including PP and FSM pupils, pupils with SEN and EAL and gender groups. This also informs curriculum review. The curriculum offer for children working below ARE or with additional learning needs is reviewed termly via year group provision maps and adaptations made as necessary
Governors monitor whether the school is complying with its funding agreement and teaching a “broad and balanced curriculum” which includes the required subjects, through monitoring visits in conjunction with school leaders and receiving reports from curriculum leads at governors’ meetings.
If you would like any further details about the curriculum offer at Martello Primary School, please contact the school. For exisiting parents and carers we suggest your child's class teacher in the first instance. Alternatively, please email or phone the school office who will be able to direct your query to the most appropriate person: martellooffice@turnerschools.com or 01303 847540.