Curriculum Statement
Intent
At Rice Lane, our curriculum is designed to be accessible to all and to provide the knowledge, skills, and character development required to enable your children to become culturally and globally-aware and to develop into accepting, and responsible members of our community and beyond. We provide an environment in which the dignity of each person is recognised and developed and underpin this with the promotion of the four core British values: democracy; the rule of law; individual liberty; mutual respect and tolerance of others.
By the end of year 6, we aim for all of our children to leave us with the necessary skills and vocabulary required to succeed in secondary school; be well-read and reasoned children, able to access literature in all walks of life and, perhaps most importantly of all, to aspire to pursue and realise their full potential in the wider world. Our curriculum is carefully planned and sequenced, building on prior knowledge and towards clear end points. Current curriculum planning seeks to address any gaps in children’s learning as a result of the pandemic.
In addition to the above aims, we have our own set of values that guide our curriculum at Rice Lane and direct our children in their daily school life. We develop our children to be respectful and resilient, independent, creative and critical thinkers, engaged in learning, listeners, achievers, nurturing and enthusiastic learners.
Implementation
All national curriculum subjects are carefully planned, structured and sequenced by our subject leaders to ensure that knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and pupils work towards clearly defined end points. Our curriculum is structured to help pupils embed key concepts in their long-term memory and apply them fluently across the curriculum. Retrieval practice is embedded throughout the curriculum which aids teachers in identifying gaps in knowledge, check for misunderstandings and helps children to learn and retain information.
Our aim is to equip children with the knowledge and skills that our pupils will need in order to ensure that they develop resilience; growing and developing academically, physically, socially and morally. Our curriculum is designed to be stimulating and challenging so that children develop a curiosity about the world around them and enable them to grow and develop in becoming independent and active learners.
Throughout all areas of the curriculum, reading is prioritised and children are given access to a wide range of age appropriate texts across all subject areas.
In addition, we take a carefully considered and rigorous approach to vocabulary development throughout every aspect of our curriculum and the broader life of the school. There is a sharp focus on phonics for our younger pupils and we follow the Read, Write Inc Scheme throughout school, which also supports our older pupils.
A range of after school activities and additional experiences such as fieldwork, educational visits and visitors to school, ensure that both enjoyment and learning are enhanced.
Impact
Children’s achievement and progress is carefully monitored through a mixture of formative and summative assessments which enables our teachers to plan the next steps for each child. All children are expected to make good or better progress but where children are found to need additional support, we have a variety of interventions to meet their specific needs.
At Rice Lane, we regularly monitor our curriculum design throughout the year to gauge the impact. Senior leaders and subject leaders monitor individual subjects: reviewing learning, evaluating pupil voice, providing individual feedback to move practice forward, celebrating positives and highlighting areas of development, that through coaching and continued professional development, are developed and strengthened. The impact of the curriculum is reviewed regularly and progress is measured against end of year outcomes.
Enjoyment of the curriculum promotes achievement, confidence and good behaviour. Children feel safe to try new things. Our pupils work collaboratively with their peers and independently as inquisitive learners, who are motivated to excel and who have a thirst for learning. Rice Lane pupils embrace challenge and are resilient learners.
Our curriculum enables our pupils to become good citizens and demonstrate an appreciation for each other, the school community and the world. Our pupils are respectful and show tolerance and acceptance to those from different faiths and backgrounds.
The staff at Rice Lane Primary School and Nursery work hard, and are incredibly proud of, our stimulating and progressive curriculum that meets the needs of all of our pupils.
