Our Curriculum Curriculum Intent

Taylor Road Primary School offers a curriculum that is ambitious and designed to give all learners, particularly the most disadvantaged, the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. It is a broadly academic curriculum, with sights set firmly on the highest possible percentage of children achieving or exceeding their potential, and going on to further their education at university, college or on an apprenticeship. Through high expectations, expert teaching and targeted intervention, children from all beliefs, backgrounds and starting points will be able to achieve. Timetabled lessons are enhanced by a varied enrichment programme, creating a well-rounded education with the development of skills that will help them to succeed in further education and employment. The curriculum is tailored to meet the needs of our children and the needs of our local community.

At TRPS we place a great deal of emphasis on building the character of our children. 

Our curriculum aims to:

• Provide a broad and balanced education for all pupils

• Support pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development

• Support pupils’ physical development and responsibility for their own health, and enable them to be active

• Foster a lifelong love of reading by exposing our children to various literature across all curriculum areas

• Ensure equal access to learning, with high expectations for every pupil and appropriate levels of challenge and support

• Develop pupils’ independent learning skills and resilience, to equip them for the next stage in their educational journey

Our curriculum is inclusive

Under the Equality Act 2010, we are required to have due regard to the need to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations. This includes steps we are taking to tackle disadvantages and meet the needs of particular individuals and groups of pupils. We aim to foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not share it by:

• Promoting tolerance and friendship and developing an understanding of a range of religions and cultures through different aspects of our curriculum. This includes teaching in RE, and personal, social, citizenship and health education (PSCHE), alongside activities in other curriculum areas. 

• Assemblies and specific initiatives are used to teach our pupils about a range of relevant issues. The curriculum also includes learning about Eco-Schools, Peaceful and Positive Places and Black History Month.

• Curriculum resources reflect diversity and ensure we are inclusive of all our pupils and our community.

• Working with our local community to ensure that our young people come in contact with people from a range of cultural and faith backgrounds.

• Ensuring our pupils, have access to the same resources and facilities

• Ensuring pupils feel safe, giving pupils equal chance of success.

Rationale Behind the TRPS Curriculum:

We live in a diverse community and our school community reflects this with 91% of our children having English as an additional language. Therefore, it is important that our curriculum teaches our children about cultural diversity, tolerance and respect.

Our community is at the heart of our teaching and learning and topics have been selected to embrace the wider community in which we live - celebrating our diverse family, links with Leicester's history and our local area – as well as expanding children’s knowledge of events and places they wouldn’t ordinarily visit or know about.

Our curriculum includes the teaching of SMSC, PSHE and British Values as well as the incorporation of STARFISH character values. Through our school values – Succeed together, Tolerance, Aspiration, Resilience, Friendship, Independence, Stay Safe and be Happy - we ensure that the well-being of all members of the school community is at the centre of our life in school and the key to raising academic success. At TRPS we are dedicated to ensuring our children receive character education. It is fundamental to the pursuit of academic excellence and stands at the heart of all aspirational teaching, learning and pastoral care.  Physical education helps children to develop the skills, knowledge, and competencies to live healthy and physically active lives at school and beyond. We offer a wide range of opportunities through P.E. as we feel this is a necessity in enabling our children to develop their physical fitness and their social and mental well-being.

Children in every year group are offered the chance to participate in a wide range of trips and visits which develop their cultural capital and give opportunities for new and exciting experiences.

Implementation

At Taylor Road Primary School, we have a skills and knowledge-based curriculum which stimulates our children into asking inquisitive questions, shaping their learning and enabling them to develop into independent thinkers and learners.

Our curriculum is based around ‘Curriculum Maestro’, from Cornerstones, which delivers outstanding learning opportunities for all children. Our Taylor Road Curriculum (Curriculum Maestro) provides a rich menu of exciting and motivating learning that makes creative links between all aspects of children’s learning. The topics have been designed to complement and build on one another with clear progression and links so that in subsequent year groups, they will be able to explore concepts deeper, applying their knowledge in different contexts. 

The Taylor Road Curriculum takes the form of 10 big ideas that provide a purpose for the aspects, skills, knowledge and contexts chosen to form the substance of the curriculum. These big ideas form a series of multi-dimensional interconnected threads across the curriculum, allowing children to encounter and revisit their learning through a variety of subject lenses. Over time, these encounters help children to build conceptual frameworks that will enable a better understanding of increasingly sophisticated information and ideas.

The Big ideas are covered in full through a range of Knowledge Rich Projects. These projects cover a range of subjects including Science, History, Geography, Art and Design Technology. Some subjects (English, Maths, Music, Computing, Spanish, PSHE, P.E. and R.E.) are taught outside of these projects but teachers make cross-curricular links with these where possible. In addition to this, we complete a range of whole school projects which take place throughout the year such as Black History Month, our Science week, Maths Week and Art Week etc. These projects enrich learning, deepen knowledge and enable us to provide bespoke learning experiences that meet the specific needs of our school community. Subjects within our curriculum are carefully sequenced to ensure that knowledge and skills and built upon throughout key stages and year groups. Class timetables are organised so that there is adequate time given to all curriculum subjects.

Using our TRPS overviews as a starting point, we develop our medium-term and short-term planning to ensure coherent coverage of key knowledge, skills and concepts and clear progression routes over a sequence of lessons. This allows for prior learning to be systematically built upon and key knowledge to be revisited. Planning is supported by subject progression documents so that lessons give children the opportunity to use and apply the skills they are developing so that they know more and understand more. This is monitored by subject leaders and links to the Teaching and Learning and Assessment Policy.

Across the curriculum, children are given regular opportunities to explore, question, investigate, evaluate, and reflect on their learning. These crucial experiences strengthen children’s subject knowledge and embed life-long skills for our children.

We also have a clear focus on the teaching and acquisition of new vocabulary. We use knowledge organisers (a set of key facts or information that pupils need to know and be able to recall to master a unit or topic) and make them available to the children during each project. This way, we help our pupils remember what they are learning and see the bigger learning journey in their subjects. The curriculum is closely monitored by subject leaders to ensure full coverage of the national curriculum, that there is depth to children’s learning and to ensure that appropriate adaptions are made to suit the learning needs of our pupils.

Impact

Achievement for children was judged to be Good by Ofsted in March 2019. We are a school that is, and will always be, aiming to 'make a positive difference to ourselves, our school and our community every day’.

Through our curriculum, all children will gain secure knowledge in a range of subjects that they can use in their lives moving forward. They leave Taylor Road Primary School as empowered individuals, keen to explore the next stage of life and learning. The majority of the children will be able to reach age-related expectations and will be prepared for the children for the next stage of learning at all key stages.

The impact of our curriculum is measured by monitoring the following areas:

• Attendance data

• Attainment data

• Progress measures KS1 - KS2

• Progress and attainment outcomes for all pupil groups

• Foundation subject assessments

• Engagement in enrichment activities

• Lesson observations

• Book looks

• Learning walks

• Pupil Voice

• Behaviour analysis

• Parent feedback

• Staff feedback