Curriculum Implementation

Since the Summer of 2022, the school has made significant changes to the planning and delivery of the wider curriculum subjects. This has involved initially the re-development of Geography, History, Art and DT. In doing so, we now have a curriculum planning model bespoke to our school, which will be gradually applied to other areas of the curriculum. We feel excited about these changes and can already see the positive impact they are having on pupils' ability to know more, remember more and do more. Please see the 'Curriculum Impact' page for more information about this. 

1. National Curriculum 2014

At Gleadless, we use the National Curriculum 2014 as the basis for all of our curriculum planning. Senior leaders, subject leaders and class teachers work collaboratively to create long term, medium term and short term planning for each subject which fulfils the requirements of the National Curriculum, whilst ensuring that it is engaging, relevant and meaningful for the children at our school. In most wider curriculum subjects, our curriculum is bespoke and is planned to meet the needs of our pupils and of our school community. The planning and implementation of these subjects is outlined below. In other subjects, leaders have decided to use particular programmes to support the planning and delivery of the curriculum. Please see individual subject pages for more information about these.

2. Whole school long term subject overview

This outlines how the National Curriculum is covered in each year group in a particular subject.

Example below: Whole school History long term overview

3. Knowledge and Skills Progression

This outlines how the knowledge and skills taught in a particular subject progress in complexity and difficulty as children move through the school. Knowledge is broken down into different categories where relevant, for example chronological understanding versus historical knowledge in history. 

Example below: History Knowledge and Skills Progression

4. Concepts progression (where relevant):

In History and Geography, we have identified which key Historical and Geographical concepts are taught in each unit of learning. This is mapped out across the school to ensure we have sufficient coverage and progression within each of these.

Example below: Historical Concepts Coverage and Progression

5. Medium Term Plans

Subject leaders and teachers create medium term plans which outline the sequence of learning for a particular unit. They use the knowledge, skills and concepts maps from steps 3 and 4 to plan how these will be achieved throughout the sequence of learning. Medium term plans consider the relevant prior knowledge and skills that children have acquired to support children to recall and make links across different areas of learning. 

Example below: Year 6 History Medium Term Plan - Spring 1 - The Ancient Maya

6. Individual lesson plans

Teachers then create their individual lesson plans and resources, using steps 3 - 5 to support them. All lessons follow the same planning proforma, to ensure that all of the necessary components of teaching and learning are included.

Example below: Year 5 lesson about the Ancient Greeks

Knowledge Organisers

To support pupils to remember the key concepts and knowledge from each unit of learning, they are provided with a knowledge organiser. These are kept in pupils' books and are referred to and used repeatedly throughout the sequence of learning. Pupils will use them as an aide-memoir initially, and then begin to quiz one another on the content to support the learning to be transferred to their long-term memory.

Example below: Y3 History Knowledge Organiser