Curriculum Overview

On each school website you will be able to see the Intent, Implementation and Impact of the schools’ curriculum delivery within their school.

Each school delivers their curriculum under the framework of the MAT curriculum rationale above but bespoke to the individual nature and needs of their community. MAT leaders work collaboratively to ensure an agreed strategic direction for the curriculum under the MAT umbrella, but it is down to the individual schools to ensure that their curriculum is of the highest quality for their pupils.

The rationale above highlights the elements of the curriculum which are common and those where the schools have the discretion to innovate for the individual and unique communities of each school

Parents or other members of the public can find out details of the curriculum at Church Drive Primary School on the school website using the Curriculum Tab.

At Church Drive Primary School, we are committed to providing a purposeful and empowering curriculum that fully prepares learners for the next steps in their school career and opens the doors to the wider world. Core literacy and numeracy skills are at the heart of all we do and our ambitious curriculum provokes curiosity and excitement.

Everything begins with our character gateways. They are woven through all that we do and underpin our shared belief that our role is to support children in aspiring to achieve, understanding their place in the world and broadening their horizons.

We believe it is our responsibility to show children that there is a world of possibility awaiting them, outside of the school gates. We also strive to encourage a love of learning, and a metacognitive understanding of how we can best learn and self-regulate, that will continue into secondary school and beyond.

Our curriculum is tailored to the needs of all of children. We celebrate our local heritage and nurture children’s understanding of the communities which they are a part. Significant people have been woven through each area of the curriculum. These include people of local, national and international significance. The study of significant individuals brings life to our learning, meaning children are more likely to recall facts and events.

Our sequential curriculum ensures that knowledge is cumulative. Substantive and disciplinary knowledge is at the heart of each subject and linked areas of study are exploited in order to consolidate and embed learning across the curriculum. At Church Drive Primary School, we pride ourselves on evidence-informed practice. We understand that memory lies at the heart of learning and therefore we strategically plan opportunities for children to recall and remember. This allows memories to be strengthened, meaning that children can draw on previous learning with confidence in order to build and connect.

Inclusive to all learners, Church Drive celebrates individuality and embraces difference. As a school community, we learn from each other and share experiences, thoughts and ideas in order to develop shared tolerance, acceptance and understanding. At the end of children’s time at Church Drive Primary, we proudly say goodbye to confident and resilient individuals who are fully prepared for the next steps in their education, and who understand the difference they can make to their community.

The curriculum on offer at Church Drive runs over a two-year cycle. Below you will find the Whole School Curriculum Intent.

2024 -2025 is Cycle A

Our curriculum is carefully sequenced: progression documents clearly outline both the knowledge and skills developed in each area of study. Dedicated time for revisiting key knowledge is carved into each half term and class teachers’ planning builds in time to recap previous learning in order to then build on knowledge and understanding in new, related areas of study.

Purposeful links are made across the curriculum, meaning that knowledge and understanding is consolidated.

We value the power of authentic experience; learning is brought to life and given relevance and meaning. We therefore carefully map trips, excursions and in-school events across school, supporting our ‘character gateways’ by ensuring a balance of coastal, urban and rural experiences.

At the heart of our collective teaching pedagogy lies evidence-informed practice. We value Rosenshine’s principles of instruction and these can be seen in practice in classrooms across school.

School-based action research into high quality questioning and quality talk in the classroom has led to a talk-rich learning environment in which pupils co-construct big ideas and learn to become active participants.

What will I see if I visit a lesson in Church Drive Primary School?

Creative, dynamic and passionate teachers: At Church Drive Primary, we love learning. Class Teachers work collaboratively to bring children’s learning to life through planned experiences, which make learned content both memorable and engaging.

Clear, detailed explanations and modelling: We fully understand the importance of teaching being explicitly clear, and tailored to individual need. Children across school are taught to analyse shared examples in order to identify key ingredients for success. Support is layered; class teachers’ keen understanding of assessment allows them to know each child as an individual and know when the time is right to remove a of support, guiding the child to independence, at a pace right for them.

 Quality talk: At Church Drive Primary, classroom talk is explicitly taught. Age appropriate prompts in the classroom support children in dialogic talk by scaffolding and extending responses. Talk ‘partners’ are embedded; with differentiated sentence stems, which support children in reciprocal talk. Children are taught talk moves, including how to agree, disagree, support, challenge, clarify and summarise.

Skilful teacher questioning: A commitment to staff training in this area has led to a teaching team that is skilled in using questioning to support learners in reaching their potential. A mix of strategies allow class teachers to direct questions to individuals where necessary, or use a ‘no hands up approach’ to allow children to contribute freely. To stretch children to the appropriate cognitive level, class teachers use prompts and cues to extend thinking. To develop this further, class teachers probe for reasoning and clarification, and, as pupils move further up the school, they are taught to give full, detailed and reasoned responses.

Spaced retrieval of  key learning: At Church Drive Primary School, we have developed a number of strategies, which support children in the recall, and retention of key knowledge. These are drawn upon during low-stakes assessments and prior to the teaching of new, yet related, content.

Clear learning intentions and tasks, which are appropriately challenging: We value the Blooms Taxonomy framework and this underpins learning sequences across the curriculum. Building areas of study around Blooms allows us to build factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive knowledge, resulting in fuller understanding and greater depth. Our aim is for children to remember key knowledge, but also to develop a full understanding of it in order to then apply this in context, creating authentic outcomes, which draw on their learning experience over time.

Hard Thinking: We think carefully about tasks which allow children space to attempt putting new learning into practice. Low-stakes tasks allow misconceptions to be addressed before children commit to working in books. We also value thinking hard; this type of active learning supports working memory and helps children to embed key knowledge. Class Teachers are skillful at ensuring that all children are expected to ‘think hard’ and tasks are designed to support this.

Resilient, independent learners: At Church Drive Primary School, we teach children metacognitive strategies, including how to plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning. Shared success criteria allow children to have ownership of their learning and support them to be able to monitor their progress. Shared and verbalised class teacher thinking also models the thinking process for children and this is evident across school.

To find out more about the curriculum our school is following, please see the National Curriculum below.

Children at Church Drive Primary School value education and love learning; they understand that in knowledge lies opportunity. Learning is revisited and built upon to ensure a breadth and depth of understanding within and across curriculum subjects. Skills are honed over time and used as a vehicle to access new knowledge.

Children leave Church Drive Primary as literate and numerate individuals who have the skill set necessary in order to thrive at secondary school and beyond. We see this through talking with our children about their learning and what they can remember; we see this through the links our children make across subjects and years groups when they talk speak about their understanding of a concept; we see this in our pupils’ wonderful work; we see this through the outstanding progress they make from their starting points with us and through their statutory assessment scores at the end of each key stage. Children leave Church Drive with the confidence to try new things and make mistakes, seeing the opportunity that lies within adversity. Our bespoke curriculum has been designed to get the best out of each and every learner. Children are resilient, hardworking and driven. They have been taught how to converse respectfully; how to value the responses offered by peers by celebrating ideas that aren’t their own, and how to politely disagree, offering their own thoughts and ideas. They stretch their own thinking by asking questions of both their peers and themselves.

Children at Church Drive know and understand their role in society; they have a sound sense of self and contribute positively to their community. They are tolerant and understand that everyone’s voice should be heard and everyone’s views should be acknowledged and respected. They leave primary school armed with the core values of respect, caring, teamwork, success, pride and learning. They are aware of their responsibility as a citizen of the modern world and have secure and developed moral foundations on which to further build.