The Curriculum at Yeadon Westfield Infants

Context

We are an infant and nursery school providing for children from 3-7. Our focus is early learning and preparing children for the next stage of this learning. Our children are in the main White British (90.3%) and come from a range of backgrounds: 11.9% of children are eligible for pupil premium, 5.2% have English as an additional language and 17.9% are on the SEND register.

Intent

Yeadon Westfield Infants is a happy and proud school. We believe that we provide a safe and secure environment that nurtures a love of learning. We aim to develop the whole person by providing happy and memorable times whilst creating opportunities for challenge and success. We prepare our pupils to become considerate and responsible members of society and we firmly believe that children best succeed when they are engaged in their learning. We passionately believe in the value of education and the doors it can open. Parents and carers have an extremely important role to play in ensuring our children achieve their potential. This happens when we all work together considering the strengths and needs of everyone in our school community. Our aim is to develop confident children who value themselves, each other and the wider world.  This importance of feeling confident, whilst possessing the cultural capital required to enable social mobility, is of paramount importance. Our motto to reach for the stars underpins everything that we do.

Our curriculum is planned with detail, precision and continuous reflection and is designed to engage and captivate our children whilst providing them with the transferable skills needed in later life. The children discover a love of learning in Early Years, and this carries on through KS1. The curriculum is progressive, coherently sequenced and enriching, providing our children with opportunities to apply their skills, knowledge and understanding across all subjects.

Implementation

In Nursery and Reception, the children are taught an Early Years curriculum based on the ‘Development Matters’ framework. In Years 1 and 2, the children follow the National Curriculum. We make learning as engaging and hands-on as possible starting with the children’s own knowledge and building on this to embrace and understand the wider world. We believe that real life experience has the biggest impact on learning and promote educational visits and visitors to school to support this.

Our school is inclusive, committed to meeting the needs of the children with SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) in the most effective way so that they achieve the best possible outcomes. We adapt how we implement the curriculum to meet the needs of pupils with SEND so that they can develop their knowledge, skills and abilities to apply what they know and can do so with increasing fluency and independence. The adaptations we make are appropriate and reasonable and are made in accordance with the Equality Act 2010 and the SEND Code of Practice 2015.

Teachers use formal and on-going assessments to determine their children’s current understanding and determine their next steps. The senior leadership team works with class teachers to identify pupils at risk of underachieving and assists in helping to address this with quality classroom differentiation, intervention or additional support.

Our staff provide feedback that is designed to enhance the understanding of the child and it is expected that the children respond to this. We believe that marking should be motivating, meaningful and manageable.

Monitoring

Our subject leaders provide strategic direction, support and advise colleagues, liaise with stake holders regarding progress and attainment and provide resource management. The subject leader is charged with keeping up to date with developments in their subject, at both national and local level. Each subject leader creates a clear vertical progression of skills and knowledge for their subject. These are then mapped onto the long-term topic overviews.
Furthermore, subject leaders monitor their subject across the school.  They will undertake learning walks, pupil and teacher interviews and will analyse the most recent data point to identify trends and variation. The monitoring cycle will evaluate current practice and the subject leader will be responsible for providing timely feedback, coaching and support.

Impact

We aim to ensure that every child makes good progress, irrespective of background and starting points.  We believe in developing enough resilience to undertake even the most challenging problem. They will leave us with a passion for lifelong learning and the skills to continue this. They will undertake problem solving challenges and get things wrong but in the end they will succeed. They will have access to resources, high-quality experiences and lessons that promote independent thinking. They will demonstrate in their learning and in their behaviour that they have the tools and the confidence to go out into the world and shine.