The Galleywood Infant School curriculum is rooted in our belief that all our children will have the opportunity to live successful and fulfilling lives if we provide an ambitious, thoughtfully planned and structured, knowledge rich curriculum that stimulates the curiosity of every child. Our curriculum is carefully sequenced and builds on and challenges previous understanding to ensure that knowledge is successfully retained in the long-term memory. We aim for deep, rich and engaging learning which forms a secure foundation for the next stages in children’s education and for their life ahead.
At Galleywood Infant School our children are empowered with learning characteristics that the children will need to be successful now and in later life: being curious, making links with existing learning, collaborating with others, communicating in a range of formats, making improvements and aiming for the best and persevering to solve problems and master new skills. These are referenced daily as our 6 Galleywood Learning Stars.
We believe that strong and secure relationships underpin children’s wellbeing and readiness to learn; we have a coordinated approach to promoting the emotional health and wellbeing of everyone within our school community. Our approach is based on the 9 elements of Trauma Perceptive Practice.
Curriculum Intent
It is our intent as a result of 3 years at Galleywood Infant School that children are competent and confident to move to the next key stage due to our unique curriculum which fosters curiosity and a love of learning, is rooted in Galleywood and builds an understanding of our place within local, National and global communities. (Strategic plan 2022-25)
The Galleywood curriculum is co-constructed by our staff team and offers unique experiences that support every child in reaching their potential. We aim for excellence and support our children to aspire to this each day. Our curriculum is multi-layered and offers a wide range of enrichment opportunities. Using the 2014 National Curriculum expectations as starting points, our teaching team plan a rich curriculum that focuses on our children’s needs and interests, local, national and global issues. This approach results in outstanding outcomes and develops confident, articulate children who love to be curious and question the world around them. We are lucky to have a varied and extensive outdoor learning environment consisting of a large field with mature trees, polytunnel, vegetable beds, copse area, wild area and outdoor classroom. The woodland area was developed by a qualified Forest School Practitioner and we are looking to train a new Forest Schools leader in 2023-24.
In constructing our Galleywood 3-year rolling curriculum, we have thought about:
- what our children need, now and in the future
- what is important and engaging to them
- ways to help them learn about the world close to us in Galleywood, as well as further afield
- how we can inspire a curiosity that will keep children learning throughout their lives
Our intent is that:
- Our children are at the centre of all our learning; we reflect collectively and individually on their needs, interests and passions, their wellbeing and their progress. Our school’s nurturing environment is fundamental in providing a safe, secure and supportive space for each child to flourish and grow.
- The curriculum builds on and challenges previous knowledge and understanding with the aim that deep, cumulative learning is successfully retained in children’s long-term memories.
- We hold high expectations for all our children and create a culture of striving for our best.
- All subjects are ambitious in their content and knowledge. By underpinning this with our Galleywood Learning Stars we intend to provide every opportunity for our children to be the craftsmen, artists, scientists, authors, mathematicians, engineers, politicians of the future and become inspiring teachers and leaders for the following generation.
- The curriculum content is relevant to the lives of our children ensuring that outcomes are authentic and have impact on the real world. This supports our children to develop the Cultural Capital they need to succeed in life. Our curriculum reflects local, national and global perspectives across the year.
- Our rigorous formative and summative assessments ensure that planning and teaching address the needs of every child. We use assessment to identify learning gaps, re-teach specific aspects, adjust curriculum content and provide feedback through which the children can work towards individual areas for improvement.
- Curriculum planning takes account of delays and gaps in learning that have arisen as a result of the pandemic or other situations such as extended absence/illness, children moving schools, periods of family difficulty, etc.
- SMSC is specifically mapped and threaded through each year of our 3-year rolling curriculum so that every child develops a growing awareness and understanding of their place in the world, socially, morally, culturally and spiritually.
- We provide the children with the necessary tools and environments to develop as well-motivated, flexible, independent, collaborative, reflective and resilient learners. It is the intent of Galleywood Infant School to provide all our children with a high quality and inclusive bespoke education that caters for the specific needs of every child.
- Learning comprises a wealth of outside experiences across the curriculum as well as highly structured and focused classroom-based activities.
- Each half termly learning theme has a launch point to engage and inspire, and leads towards an end point, which enables children to demonstrate and apply the knowledge and skills they have acquired for a real purpose or specific audience.
- The curriculum is designed to be a progression model, so that in addition to building substantive knowledge, skills and vocabulary for a subject within each learning theme, topics are chosen so that progression develops across EYFS and Key Stage 1 and children come to understand what it means to be a historian, a geographer, an artist, a mathematician or a scientist (disciplinary knowledge).
- We place significant emphasis on professional dialogue between staff and prioritise time to plan, design and teach sequences of excellent lessons. We encourage professional growth through staff meetings, high quality CPD, collaboration across the CTSA network and dialogue with a range of consultants and advisors.
- We work with a range of partners locally and further afield to ensure we are always reflective, well-informed and underpin our decisions and curriculum developments with evidence-based research.
Curriculum Implementation
- Galleywood Infant School takes a holistic approach to learning and development, integrating opportunities, experiences and support designed to nurture the mental health and wellbeing of every child. We are inclusive in our approach and believe that every child is unique with huge potential to achieve.
- Subject leaders, supported by a well-structured CPD programme, ensure that sequences of lessons in all areas of the curriculum are underpinned by excellent subject knowledge and appropriate high-quality resources. Music and some aspects of PE are taught by specialists, and every learning theme is enriched by a demonstration or input from experts, whether that be an artist, farmer, musician, author, health professional, faith leader or other visitor.
- Our curriculum is underpinned by our 6 ‘Galleywood Learning Stars: being curious, making links with existing learning, collaborating with others, communicating in a range of formats, making improvements and aiming for the best and persevering to solve problems and master new skills. Each aspect of learning is represented by a character, which brings these to life for the children, makes them easily relatable and supports the children’s understanding of how they will support their learning now and in the future.
- Reading is prioritised in a range of ways and throughout every aspect of our curriculum. Many years of high-quality staff training, significant investment in beautiful reading resources and a curriculum based on carefully selected texts rich with learning potential, demonstrate the importance we place on reading at the heart of Galleywood Infant School. Excellent teaching of phonics and reading, following the rigorous and sequential approach of our chosen scheme, enables our children to develop as confident, enthusiastic readers with access to a whole world of fiction and information.
- In all their learning children are encouraged to take risks and learn from mistakes, to be ambitious and, with the help of their teachers, aim for the very best they can achieve.
- Daily assessment informs our teaching and supports children’s learning. Teachers systematically check understanding, identify misconceptions and provide accurate feedback so that children know they are making progress and can take ownership of improving their own work. Summative data is collected 3 times a year, enabling us to identify children who may not be on track in an aspect of their learning, identify and close specific gaps that will enable them to catch up.
- Children are encouraged and supported to deepen their learning by thinking hard, remembering content they have been taught, making links between new and existing knowledge and applying their new learning by reasoning.
- Subject planning includes opportunities for remembering, knowing and reasoning as learning depth increases within each subject across the year and key stage. POP tasks, portrayal of progress, are embedded in unit planning for foundation subjects and state specifically what pupils could achieve to demonstrate basic, advancing and deeper learning to support accurate and well-informed assessment.
Curriculum Impact
The curriculum at Galleywood Infant School is successful in achieving excellent outcomes for our learners and preparing them well for the next stage in their education.
- Children enjoy school and make confident, enthusiastic contributions to their classroom discussions, recognising how to link and build upon prior learning. This is evidenced in the children’s work, talking to pupils and in the learning journey displays in every classroom.
- Our learning stars are successful in building children’s awareness of themselves as learners and developing skills to take forward into Key Stage 2 and beyond.
- Our children understand and demonstrate the school values of kindness, curiosity and aspiration, and they talk with enthusiasm about how to be good citizens and take responsibility for our fragile planet.
- Across their 3 years at Galleywood all our children, including our disadvantaged children and those with SEND develop an awareness and understanding of their place in the world, socially, morally, culturally and spiritually, and experience through our wider curriculum the cultural capital they need to succeed in life.
- Attainment at the end of Key Stage 1 is above national average
Children make strong progress in reading from a range of starting points; children apply phonics to decode accurately and show developing comprehension skills. This is evidenced in above national phonics and KS1 reading outcomes.