Our Curriculum Statement
Senior leaders, staff, pupils, parents and carers have worked collaboratively to develop a shared vision for the curriculum that we have developed at Creunant Primary School.
The school’s curriculum meets the required elements as set out in the national framework. It is focused on ensuring that pupils develop the four purposes of being Ambitious Capable Learners; Enterprising Creative Contributors; Ethical and Informed Citizens and Healthy Confident Individuals.
The curriculum at our school is progressive and will ensure pupils develop control and independence in their development of their literacy, numeracy, digital and integral skills in addition to ensuring pupils engage with increasingly complex and sophisticated content to progress their knowledge and understanding. Learners will develop an understanding of all ‘Statements of What Matters’ as part of the school’s curriculum.
The process of exploring and revisiting these statements will enable our learners to develop ever deeper knowledge over their learning continuum and to progress to a more sophisticated understanding of the key knowledge, ideas and principles in each Area of Learning and Experience.
We will continue to utilise some diagnostic assessment (summative) to support progress and the development of Individual Development Plans for our learners with Additional Learning Needs.
Our curriculum will have an emphasis on formative assessment, and we will use observations of learning which is planned for and purposeful to inform learning and teaching. Continuous assessment at our school enables learner progression as it is focused on supporting learners to move forward with their learning on a day to day basis and identifying, capturing and reflecting on learners’ progress over time. We will work within and beyond our cluster of schools to develop and refine a common understanding of progression and assessing of progression. This will be achieved through regular cluster meetings with a focus on progression involving staff and learners.
The school’s curriculum is broad and balanced, ensuring that pupils develop an integrated, cross-disciplinary approach to learning and ensures learners make meaningful links across the six Areas of Learning and Experience. This enables learners to build connections across their learning and combine different experiences, knowledge and skills.
Our curriculum is designed to develop in our pupils a sense of belonging, not just in a physical or geographical sense but also the historic, cultural and social place which has shaped and continues to shape the community which our school inhabits. We aim to help our pupils make sense of their own identities and those of others, in our community, Wales and the across the world.
Our curriculum which is based on concepts, is being kept under review and ongoing refinement through valuable input and feedback from our pupils, parents , governors, staff and the wider community.
The school will monitor the impact of its curriculum on pupils’ progression and their development of the four purposes on a continuous basis throughout the academic year and complete a formal review on an annual basis.
The world is changing. There are lots of new challenges that will need new technology and new ideas. the Welsh Government wants you to have the knowledge, skills and experiences you’ll need to succeed.
Click here to find information about the new curriculum in Wales and the exciting changes it will bring to our school.
So what’s changed…
The new curriculum will have more emphasis on equipping young people for life. It will build their ability to learn new skills and apply their subject knowledge more positively and creatively. As the world changes, they will be more able to adapt positively.
They will also get a deep understanding of how to thrive in an increasingly digital world. A new digital competence framework is now introducing digital skills across the curriculum, preparing them for the opportunities and risks that an online world presents.
Meanwhile teachers will have more freedom to teach in ways they feel will have the best outcomes for their learners.
The central focus of assessment arrangements will be to ensure learners understand how they are performing and what they need to do next. There will be a renewed emphasis on assessment for learning as an essential and integral feature of learning and teaching.
The purpose of the new curriculum is to support our children and young people to be:
- ambitious, capable learners, ready to learn throughout their lives
- enterprising, creative contributors, ready to play a full part in life and work
- ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world
- healthy, confident individuals, ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.
It will have six ‘Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLE).
- Expressive arts.
- Health and well-being.
- Humanities (including RE which should remain compulsory to age 16).
- Languages, literacy and communication (including Welsh, which should remain compulsory to age 16, and modern foreign languages).
- Mathematics and numeracy.
- Science and technology.
It will also include three cross-curricular responsibilities: literacy, numeracy and digital competence.
Assessment is a continuous process and takes place on a daily basis in schools. Progression reference points help learners, teachers, parents and carers to understand if appropriate progress is being made. They will set out expectations for learners in each area of their learning relating broadly to ages 5, 8, 11, 14 and 16.
But why has it changed?…
Now more than ever, young people need to be adaptable to change, capable of learning new skills throughout life and equipped to cope with new life scenarios.
Advances in technology and globalisation have transformed the way we live and work. These changes have profound implications for what, and how, children and young people need to learn. After all, tablets and smart phones didn’t even exist when the last curriculum was introduced in 1993.
Schools and teachers need more flexibility to respond to this environment, using a new curriculum which will promote high achievement and engage the interest of all children and young people to help them reach their potential.
The new curriculum will bring this about by making learning more experience-based, the assessment of progress more developmental, and by giving teachers the flexibility to deliver in more creative ways that suit the learners they teach.
This new approach was informed by Professor Graham Donaldson’s independent review of curriculum and assessment arrangements in Wales, Successful Futures, in February 2015 which provided the foundations for a twenty-first Century curriculum shaped by the very latest national and international thinking.
Since the report, teachers and stakeholders have been consulted at events across Wales to gather their thoughts and start to shape future curriculum and assessment arrangements.