INNOVATE . FOCUS . ACHIEVE

At Boldon School, all aspects of the school ethos, ‘Innovate, Focus and Achieve’ are underpinned across each subject area. In English, we strive to embed these principles within our curriculum:

Innovate: To create innovative and progressive schemes of work which are well-sequenced to ensure excellent student outcomes.

Focus: A clear drive and focus key threads for reading, writing and spoken language;
A relentless drive to sharpen key knowledge concepts and ensure understanding of portable themes.
To ensure that all lessons widen the scope and appreciation of grammar, vocabulary and subject content.

Achieve: The aim is to ensure proficiency in reading, writing and oracy; this is key to social mobility. Our robust curriculum is designed to build strong foundations in knowledge and understanding which lead to academic and personal success. We want our students to enjoy the subject, and be inspired to be innovative in their responses, to focus on skill acquisition and implementation and, ultimately, to achieve their true potential. Students will be well-skilled to succeed in their next steps, whether it be education, further training or the world of employment.

Each of our curriculum areas are carefully designed with the students at the heart of our thinking. The intent is for the framework for each programme of study in the National Curriculum to be well planned and sequenced to enable all students to build their knowledge and skills towards the agreed end points at each key stage. We consider how this is taught in order to support our students and ensure this is implemented effectively. For the desired impact to be reflected in the outcomes that students achieve through the education they have received.

This is embedded across each subject area: Maths

Intent:

The mathematics curriculum at Boldon School is an innovative and bespoke curriculum that provides every student with the key knowledge they need and the deep understanding to access their next stage in learning. We ensure students in early years take small steps to ensure long term memory retention is increased . This allows us to ensure the learning in subsequent years is sequential and builds on previous learning. We focus on the skills and understanding they need to ensure the curriculum in Key Stage 4 can be understood and students can cope with the demands of a mathematics GCSE.

The maths department constantly review what we are delivering within a faculty, CPD always leads to new collaborative resources being added to our schemes of work to ensure they evolve with needs of our students, something which we constantly monitor by providing all students with the opportunity to take part in student voice. The questions are designed to accurately find out how much students enjoy their maths lessons and whether the curriculum is enabling them to make good progress in lessons.

Implementation:

The mathematics curriculum is designed to flow through to the next stage and provide students with knowledge and understanding needed to progress. In Key Stage 3 we take small steps as studies have shown this leads to greater long term memory retention and allow us to progress onto new material in subsequent years without spending a large amount of time recapping work.  Assessment takes place through regular regular unit tests that focus on objectives from key stage 3 national curriculum.

The implementation of the curriculum depends on the delivery of high quality lessons from the department. We have an excellent ethos and culture in the department because of the cycle we have of delivering relevant CPD to address curriculum needs and staff acting on this CPD to contribute to lessons and shared resources. Staff are therefore invested in the curriculum and it’s delivery.

Students are assessed at each assessment point in later years in school using exam papers and graded against this benchmark and progress is tracked to ensure each student reaches their potential. Students are tracked against previous year groups and compared to subsequent ones to ensure no student’s progress stalls.

Impact:

Examination results, together with examination analysis and evaluations, are discussed through examination meetings with the Deputy Headteacher and the Headteacher. These are also reported to other senior leaders and the governing body to ensure challenge and accountability. The Faculty Leader and Co-coordinator are an integral part of the termly progress meetings which evaluate the data outcomes, following assessment periods. Faculty learning walks for KS3 and KS4, based on the faculty’s priorities, are scheduled and are woven into the monitoring calendar for each academic year.  Student voice is used to survey the impact of the curriculum and evaluate the impact of those modules on our students’ learning and enjoyment; these outcomes are used to help reshape the curriculum, going forward. Finally, external reviews and evaluations from our School Improvement Officer allows the faculty to be ever evolving, with a relentless drive to deliver exceptional student outcomes.