Intent

The curriculum at The Tynings Primary school is one which aims to ensure children

• Are equipped to academically thrive in secondary school and beyond
• Have access to high quality arts education
• Have a good understanding of their place in the world and how to make the world a better place
• Know how to keep themselves fit and healthy, both mentally and physically

Being academically successful

We understand the need for children to reach the government’s expected standard in order for them to be able to cope with the academic challenges which they face at secondary school and in life. Time is dedicated to ensuring that children can read fluently through English lessons that use high quality texts, learn from a wide range of authors, and talk and write with passion about a variety of subjects. Mathematically, we teach children to be fluent in basic skills and to be able to reason with and apply these skills to mathematical problems. We want children to succeed across a variety of subjects, and to know how a good learner achieves success. Our curriculum develops the children’s oracy and helps them to be curious and to articulate their thinking, creating confident learners.

High quality arts education

A good artist, book or poem, and piece of music is used to stimulate curiosity and learning in a wider theme. Drama and art is used to make learning memorable and physical, and therefore deeper, by designing situations in which learners can think creatively. The arts curriculum enables children to work collaboratively and independently. We are a singing school and believe in the importance of children singing together as well as for performance. We aim to enable all our children to have access to music tuition during KS2.

Our place in the world

We believe that learners are entitled to an education that equips them with the knowledge, skills and values they need to embrace the opportunities and challenges they encounter, creating a future they want to live in. For this, we believe that children need to have a good understanding of how our country has developed, where it fits into the wider world, and how they can have an impact on their future. Real life contexts enable learners to think as global citizens, making sense of a world marked by division, conflict, environmental change, extreme inequality and poverty. This promotes discussion, debate and communication where children are able to respectfully consider different perspectives and points of view on global issues. We want children to ‘be present in the world’ and to be critical thinkers, who can decide what is right and what is wrong and are resilient to the influence of others. Forest school enhances this learning, and takes place in our school grounds.

Keeping fit and healthy: body and mind

As well as knowing how to look after their bodies, we teach children to look after their brains, and ensure they are ready to learn. We encourage learners to reflect on their learning and act upon feedback to make it even better. Through positive relationships and character education we build strong, resilient and kind learners. We work with sports experts to provide high quality PE activities that enable children to see the benefit of exercise, and the children are taught how to stay safe in the modern world.

Curriculum Organization

These four priority areas of our curriculum are organised into 6 whole school themes, which refelct the needs of our community. As much relevant learning as possible takes place within these themes, including English, art, music, DT, and RE. Some subjects may be taught discretely, for example PE, maths, French. 

Saving Our Planet: Geography, Science, PHSE. Looking at how the planet is endangered and what we can do to help to save it, on a local, national and global scale

Building Relationships: HIstory, Geography, PHSE. How different communities have built and do build relationships to create a prosperous and peaceful life; our school community and how we can all work together

Different Cultures: Geography, PHSE, RE. Different cultures from the past and their impact on life today; cultures of today; living in a diverse community

Acceptance & Kindness: Science, HIstory, Geography. Learning from pioneers of their time, to push boundaries and make an impact on the world

The World Today: PHSE, Geography, Science. Current affairs, life today – locally, nationally, globally

Subject Organisation 

To organise the knowledge within our curriculum, we follow a macro and micro concept model. Macro concepts are the ‘big ideas’ and themes that form the structure of the curriculum. For example, the macro concepts in History are Democracy and Power, Civilisations and Settlements and Invasion. Micro concepts are then the smaller steps that progress the learning on within the macro concept and form the specific learning of a unit of work. Units can have multiple macro and micro concepts. For full information on the progression within subjects, please see their relevant page. 

As we have mixed-age classes, we following a rolling cycle, please see below our rolling cycle for the history, geography and science. Further details can be found on the subject pages. 

Assessment:

To assess the wider curriculum we use 3 assessment points in a unit. Phase 1 happens before the unit is taught and assess the children’s prior knowledge. It helps teachers tailor the journey and ensure any misconceptions that have shown can be addressed and allows teachers to see where they can deepen the learning. Phase 2 happens three quarters through a unit and is either a scientific investigation, geographical field study or a historical enquiry. This allows children to apply the learning and allows teachers to see what knowledge and skills they have acquired and what is needed to be taught further before the end of the unit. Phase 3 happens at the end of the unit and is in the form of an end of unit check. These focus on the key knowledge needed in the unit and allows teachers to assess and check for misconceptions to see what knowledge needs to be built into retrieval and what knowledge needs further teaching opportunities.