Curriculum at Paddock
At Paddock Junior, Infant and Nursery School, our vision for the curriculum permeates all aspects of our work, from our teaching and our extra-curricular offer to ongoing projects and our day-to-day activities, such as assemblies, rewards and lunchtimes!
Our topics incorporate, and provide context for, the majority of National Curriculum subjects. Many curriculum lessons include skills and content from multiple subjects. If subjects are unable to fit into the topic theme, they are taught discretely.
Knowledge Organisers
Our Knowledge Organisers capture the key information, terminology, and dates or quotes for a topic. The information on a Knowledge Organiser is the minimum that needs to be known, rehearsed and stored over time in the long-term memory in order for our pupils to become fluent in the material. It is a given that plenty of other technical vocabulary and facts will be encountered and learnt through the topic.
4fromb4 are key knowledge, skills or understanding that the children will have learned before. We are encouraging our children to store all this information in their long-term memory so that they can build on this prior learning.
Curriculum Enhancements
We encourage every topic across school to include a visitor or visit. Over the course of your child’s primary schooling, they will experience an array of opportunities relating to their curriculum learning. These visits and visitors offer specialised knowledge upon which children can build their understanding of the subject. Each topic begins with an inspiring and powerful hook, intentionally thought-provoking to ignite a sense of curiosity in the children that will be sustained for a full unit of work and create a strong point of reference. This may be through a dress up day, a visitor to talk about their job or an educational workshop. At the end of each topic, we have a celebration event, this showcases what the children have learnt.
Our curriculum enhancements are mapped out on the 'Enhancement Overviews' for each subject area.
Curriculum Specialists
To promote our Paddock Key Driver 'aspiration', we introduce an inspirational, subject-specialist for each subject and every new unit. These include past and present people from all communities who have influenced or been aspirational in their field of work.
Our curriculum specialists are mapped out on the 'Specialist Overviews' for each subject.
Extra-Curricular Offer
Extra-curricular clubs are on offer over lunchtime as well as after school. They ensure enriching and varied opportunities for all pupils and activities are usually led by specialist teachers and coaches.
Events
Open Door Sessions
Each half term, we invite parents and carers into school. These sessions are designed for you as a parent, to have the opportunity to come and explore your child’s learning environment alongside them. It is a great parent and child bonding experience which your child can take ownership of as they showcase how and what they are learning in school.
Parent Workshops
We hold frequent parent workshops and/ or Stay and Play sessions. During these sessions we model to parents different aspects of the curriculum and how they can support their child at home. These have previously focused on phonics, reading, maths and writing. We use these opportunities to share curriculum expectations, how we teach the subject in school and we will model different activities that you can do at home.