Clase Primary School - Curriculum for Wales Summary

Introduction

For the past 4 years the Clase Primary community has been getting ready to embark on the Curriculum for Wales journey beginning in September 2022. Even though September is the start, we believe that curriculum design is an ongoing process that adapts to the needs of the learning community. In our preparations we have ensured we have a curriculum that is flexible and teaching staff that are well trained in the principles that underpin excellent teaching. The Curriculum for Wales is designed to ensure that the learners of today are able to adapt to the living and working environments they face in the future, so we feel that our curriculum at Clase should be designed so that it should too.

At Clase Primary School we recognise that there are both mandatory and statutory duties that we must consider when designing our curriculum. The Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Act 2021 places mandatory duties on schools – these are things that we legally must do and also statutory guidance that we have to pay due regard to. These duties are clarified in the table below.

The Headteacher and the Governing Body have jointly adopted our curriculum and assessment arrangements through ratification of policy and practice. The curriculum and assessment arrangements will continually be kept under review through the school’s self-evaluation process.

Practitioners, leaners, parents, carers, and the wider community contribute to curriculum design. These stakeholders are part of the process through Pupil Voice feedback, parent questionnaires and Curriculum Design Events.

Our School Vision

Our school vision is the starting place when we consider curriculum design at Clase primary. The school vision was created following conversations with all members of our school community around why we were here and what we wanted to see in our learners. The vision is:

‘We aspire for all our children to become healthy, confident, secure, caring individuals who strive to be the best they can be. They are given every opportunity to achieve their full potential, develop a love of learning, foster a sense of belonging, acquire skills to become lifelong learners and have the ability to make informed choices.’

A Purpose Driven Curriculum

Our curriculum at Clase is designed to enable every learner aspires to the four purposes:

• Ambitious, capable Learners
• Creative, Enterprising Contributors
• Healthy, Confident Individuals
• Ethical, Informed Citizens

Every learner, no matter their age or ability, is planned for and considered. All staff have undertaken training in the Principles for Excellence in teaching. This training has included providing a wide range of strategies to engage all learners, using real life authentic hooks for learning and giving the learners experiences that motivate and inspire them.

As part of our curriculum journey all learners engaged with the four purposes. Learners have looked at what it means to embody each of the purposes. Learners took part in activities that gave them opportunity to explore the four purposes and learners in Y5/6 came up with their own way of explaining the four purposes.

100 Experiences at Clase Primary

At Clase Primary we have spent time, with all stakeholders, considering what are the essential experiences our learners should have in life before they leave Clase Primary and move on to secondary school. The learners have been a key part of this process and have been able to share what experiences they value in school. At the end of the process we have come up with 100 experiences that help the members of our community reach towards the four purposes. Each purpose has 25 experiences linked to it. See in the posters attached at the bottom of the page! Learners will record and tick off experiences as they work their way through school on a ‘Digital Passport’ that will be accessible for learners, parents and teachers.

Throughout the school learners will continue to use their knowledge of the four purposes to link learning experiences, whether they are in the 100 or not, to them. This will be displayed through the picture of a tree with each branch of four representing a purpose. A tree will be displayed in a central point for each group of learners, where, as the year goes on, learners will add their experiences. This will build a picture of the variety of experiences our learners have the opportunity to engage with and highlight to them and others how they are working towards the four purposes.

Exploring Big Questions through Learning and Experience

All learning from September will come under the umbrella of our ‘Big Questions’, these ‘Big Questions’ allow for all members of the community to share a common theme and come together under one quest of learning. Our Big Questions are run over a 2-year cycle at 1 per term, for the first 2-year cycle they are:

Within these ‘Big Questions’ each group of learners will dig deeper into a more focused area. For example, in the ‘Big Question’ How do we make our World a better place? Learners in Early years will look at ‘All About Me’, learners in Y1/2 will look at ‘Family’, learners in Y3/4 will look at ‘Community’ and learners in Y5/6 will focus on the ‘wider World’. This will allow for progression and varied experiences as the learners go through school. It is important for every curriculum to allow for vertical coherence – where learners build on learning they have previously done this allows learners to absorb new knowledge and skills more effectively as they move along the progression continuum.

As part of constructing our curriculum, teaching staff have worked with cluster colleagues to ensure vertical coherence continues into secondary school. Essential learning concepts have been agreed for each AoLE that will be covered to ensure learners have equity when they arrive at their next destination.

Our ‘Big Questions’ allow teachers the opportunity to plan for and address all statutory and mandatory considerations. This includes relationship and sexuality education, and Religion, Values and Ethics will be explored.

Through each focus learners will have the opportunity to undertake learning from across all Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs). Teachers also ensure that the application of cross-curricular skills (Literacy, Numeracy and Digital Competence) is planned for.

Teachers plan lessons that engage the learners with a variety of pedagogical approaches and meet the needs of all learners. Lessons are focused around key learning objectives which are taken from the descriptions of learning. Success criteria are used to help learners towards the learning objectives. Where appropriate the success criteria is generated by learners as part of a process of self-assessment. Where this isn’t possible success criteria are developed in child-friendly language and shared with learners.

Assessment Arrangements within the Curriculum for Wales

At Clase Primary we have planned for robust assessment arrangements. To accurately assess and support learners we draw upon a range of information. Staff place huge emphasis on the importance on formative assessment, this is assessment that happens ‘in the moment’ and facilitates learners to make progress immediately. Parents receive regular information on their child’s progress and are given help to understand their next steps in learning.

Assessment arrangements include:-

• Baseline assessment
• Day to day formative assessment
• Live feedback
• Identifying, capturing and reflecting on learner progress over time.
• Termly learner progress meetings
• Opportunities to plan and refine progression in school and across the cluster.
• Personalised assessments – quantitative and qualitative
• Parent/carer involvement

Everyone Learning Together

We believe that every member of the school community, including pupils, staff and parents are on the learning journey. Together we develop as a learning organisation, using information from research, working with other schools, making strong links with local businesses and using real life contexts to engage all members of the community.

Big Bocs Bwyd

At Clase Primary we provide our learners with opportunities to be entrepreneurs. This includes the opportunity to involved with our Big Bocs Bwyd. This is a social enterprise that has been set up and run by the Clase Primary community, the project embodies our passion for ensuring a sustainable future and plays a key part in educating our learners about food literacy. Big Bocs Bwyd is implemented into our curriculum design through teachers planning.