At Hillbourne Primary School we are able to provide Quality First Teaching and Learning for all children. We provide an enriched and adaptive curriculum for all children, which is designed to meet the individual learning needs of every child. We have very experienced teaching Assistants who have the skills and knowledge to adjust learning as necessary so that pupils thrive. We also have Teaching Assistants who have undertaken specialist training to support our pupils eg ELSA.

We comply with the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Education Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 by ensuring that the curriculum is accessible for those with disabilities or SEN. This may be through resourcing, adaptations and adult support. Please see  the SEN and equality policy for further information

Our curriculum is at the heart of what we do at Hillbourne Primary School. It aims to:

• Inspire in all pupils a love of learning and the desire to continue to learn
• Ensure that all pupils have equal opportunity to take part in the life and work of the school to become active citizens
• Encourage children to be curious, challenge ideas and construct their own ideas
• Equip all pupils with the tools and knowledge necessary to continue to progress after they have left our school

At Hillbourne Primary School we are determined to provide the very best for every child and create a learning environment where they can achieve their personal best. We are committed to support all children to love learning by ensuring our curriculum excites and engages the children. We also make sure our children are able to read, write, calculate with numbers, and use current technology effectively, as these are important skills needed to help them succeed on their journey through education. This will enable them to become adults who can achieve well in an ever-changing world.

The curriculum is inclusive and aims for all pupils to deepen their learning. It fulfils the requirements of the National Curriculum through carefully sequenced learning, with a clear progression of knowledge from Early Years to Year Six. It is designed based on a spiral curriculum, allowing children to return to and build upon previous learning, applying substantive and disciplinary knowledge to new challenges. It is designed to be engaging, broad and progressive. It is a curriculum that evolves, based on the needs of our children and changes in the world around us. It takes into account the local context of the school, experiences and backgrounds of our children and provides them with relevant and memorable learning experiences to ensure every child has every opportunity. It focuses on knowledge and vocabulary development, as well as a range of experiences, which have been designed to increase children’s cultural capital. These experiences involve visitors within school, as well as educational visits, and are carefully planned to inspire or allow children to consolidate and apply taught knowledge.

Throughout their time at Hillbourne Primary School, pupils will be encouraged to take responsibility for their learning so that they become independent, resilient and imaginative learners with a wide variety of skills. We are committed to delivering lifelong learning which enables children to know more and remember more. By experiencing new challenges, children will learn to adapt and improve, and develop as a unique individual.

• Remember – Retrieval practice to retrieve past knowledge. Review to help to remember the key knowledge from the last lesson or other content from previous units that is helpful. Use of AfL here to assess which knowledge has been forgotten. This may take the form of a quiz, picture quiz, keyword match up, picture match up, flashcards, gap fill, tell your partner, etc.
• Instruct Powerful Knowledge – New substantive knowledge is instructed in small chunks and is carefully sequenced. Knowledge is broken down into knowledge statements, using ‘I know…’ using dual coding. This knowledge, along with key vocabulary, is then checked before moving on.
• Model – Disciplinary knowledge and skills are then explicitly modelled by the teacher within the context of knowledge already taught. Modelling of this is done one step at a time with continual checks. Instruction is concise and language is clear. Support understanding of small steps taken- ‘I do, we do, you do’ staged approach. Using the gradual release model, children have the opportunity to discuss and show their understanding.
• Practise / Apply – Children have the opportunity to practise the modelled learning. They experience tasks that help them to independently apply their substantive knowledge using the disciplinary skill. Evidence in books shows how the children have applied their knowledge. Suitable adaptions have been made to allow all children to experience success and achieve the learning intention.
• Deepen – Pupils will also deepen the new knowledge, allowing them to show a depth of understanding. These tasks often require a degree of critical thinking where the children need to reason, explain, justify or make connections between previous taught content.
• Reflect and Review – Recap on the new learning ensuring that the pupils have taken away the ‘sticky’ bit of knowledge. This could be by using sentence stems to share their understanding. Use of AfL here to identify the next steps for learning.