CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

Our curriculum development is aligned with the Yorkshire Causeway Schools Trust (YCST) curriculum and assessment principles. The school and trust have a vision for providing an ambitious education for all children. At Hampsthwaite we work closely as a school team with trust networks groups and the trust School Improvement Lead on curriculum development.

Through the work of our Trust leadership group and our subject networks groups we carefully consider how research can inform our curriculum design and implementation. This helps us continually refine our curriculum intent and implementation for the benefit of children helping us achieve the Learn element of our vision.

HAMPSTHWAITE CURRICULUM INTENT

Education at Hampsthwaite is based on the National Curriculum. Learning is sequenced in a way that ensures progression and the development of key knowledge and skills – embedding these within the children’s long term memory. We strive to ensure that our children’s creativity, interests and talents are nurtured so that they will be able to ‘Enjoy, Achieve and Flourish’ during their time with us.

HAMPSTHWAITE CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION

Our carefully crafted curriculum balances the National Curriculum expectations as well as a range of experiences, allowing our children to Enjoy, Achieve…Flourish. The curriculum is implemented through subjects taught discretely and subjects that are interwoven to create cross curricular themes, therefore creating a purposeful and exciting learning journey for each and every child. The themes are planned within a two-year rolling curriculum programme and therefore ensure that our children have the best opportunity to remember the knowledge and skills they have been taught in both the short, and long-term memory. The combination of both discreet and themed lessons aims to inspire and excite children about new learning but also combines transferable skills, demonstrates a breadth of vocabulary and allows for strong cross curricular links.

HAMPSTHWAITE CURRICULUM IMPACT

The impact of the curriculum at Hampsthwaite is measured using triangulated monitoring throughout the year to gauge the effectiveness of our curriculum. A wide variety of stakeholders are involved in the process of ensuring we successfully achieve our curriculum intent.

• Senior Leaders strengthen our vision and values as we work together to reflect on our curriculum and share opinions and outcomes
• Subject Leaders monitor their individual subjects within their termly release time, reviewing learning and ensuring that learning is progressive (e.g. Science: Light - Y3 and Y6 – what does the work tell us), evaluating pupil voice, providing individual feedback to move practice forward, celebrating positives and highlighting areas of development.
• Formal lesson observations ensure that learning is effective and builds on prior knowledge and skills as well as where the lessons fits within the long term and medium plans of the subject  
• Link Governors have termly meetings with staff to challenge their understating of the subjects which they lead
• The school has termly school improvement visits with external advisers in order to quality assure the work that is being done
• Termly data captures and pupil progress meetings hold staff to account, therefore ensuring that no child is left behind and those that can be extended further, are being

Above all, we want our children to leave Hampsthwaite having lived out our vision – that they are equipped with the life and academic skills necessary for living in a fast changing, diverse and multicultural society

HAMPSTHWAITE CURRICULUM ASSESSMENT OF FOUNDATION (and further CORE) SUBJECTS 

We believe in a broad and balanced curriculum, and we also assess children in the following subjects:

• PSHE/RSE

• Computing

• History

• Geography

• Religious Education - CORE subject 

• Physical Education

• Design and Technology

• Art and Design

• Music

• Languages (French)

We look at the common knowledge and skills for each of these subject areas and aim to help children progress in these skills by providing relevant expectations for each year group. Children progress as they move through the school, engaging in exciting topic and experiential learning activities.

Subject Leaders triangulate their subjects using our bespoke ‘Building a Picture’ document where they analyse planning, work, lessons and also speak to our children as part of pupil voice. Medium term plans are annotated at the end of a unit of work with names of children that are either ‘Working Towards’ (WTS) or ‘Greater Depth’ (GDS). This then allows leaders to liaise with class teachers to ensure that we are putting measures in place to enable us to further deliver the best possible curriculum to all groups of learners.

Regular retrieval practice is built in throughout the term, finishing with a summative assessed piece. This further strengthens our school vision and values for all and allows for a more robust way of understanding curriculum strengths and any potential areas for development.

SCHEMES USED AT HAMPSTHWAITE TO SUPPORT THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF SOME FOUNDATION SUBJECTS 

KAPOW is used to enhance and strengthen the curriculum in RE, Geography, History, Art and Design, Design and Technology, PSHE/RSE, Languages and Music.

For PSHE, PE and Religious Education we also use PSHE Association (Health and Wellbeing; Relationships; and Living in the Wider World), Real PE and Understanding Christianity respectively, to  further support our teachers in confidently delivering and assessing our high quality curriculum.

At Hampsthwaite, we are confident that using these schemes as a start point, ensures that we have well-planned coverage of the National Curriculum, as well as a consistent approach to knowledge and skills progression from EYFS to Y6. The schemes we use are written by subject-specific experts and are carefully designed to engage the children and help them retain and recall key aspects of learning. Our Hampsthwaite approach of using these as a start point, but then very much tailoring them for our school, saves 'reinventing the wheel', and enables our staff to use their breadth of skills and knowledge of our children, to enhance the learning with local knowledge, personal experiences, critical thinking, analysis, oracy; and activities that bring the learning to life both in the classroom and through opportunities including trips, webinars, live-lessons and visits from specialists.  

We believe this provides an enriched, progressive, broad and balanced curriculum so that all our children can 'Enjoy, Achieve...Flourish'. 

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Mental health and wellbeing are prioritised within our curriculum design, allowing children opportunities to exhibit spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding. To promote healthy lifestyles, the school has invested in a range of facilities, for example: Part-time Pastoral Lead; Forest School; JustB; ELSA; Wellbeing Lead; Mental Health First Aider. We feel that our dedication to supporting the mental and physical wellbeing of our children is further reflected in the introduction of Wellbeing Ambassadors and our new termly school publication - Happy Times - both of which enable our children to contribute positively to our school environment, values and ethos. Copies of our Happy Times publication can be located here. 

BEHAVIOUR AND ATTITUDES

Children’s interests and skills are invaluable in their pursuit of making a difference in the world – at Hampsthwaite they have opportunity to utilise their individual strengths and interests in the part they play in charity work, school committees and class activities.

Our curriculum ensures that pupil engagement levels are high, which is reflected in the school’s continued high attendance levels. Safeguarding is embedded deep into our curriculum, teaching children about how to keep themselves safe in the modern world. Parents and children tell us that they feel safe in school, with 95% responding positively to their child feeling happy on parent questionnaire. 

The intent of our curriculum is implemented through the subject coverage over a two year planning cycle. The overviews can be accessed below:

For the academic year 2024-2025, we are within the Year A planning cycle 

The Recovery Curriculum at Hampsthwaite C of E Primary School

The national school lockdown in March 2020 and January 2021 had a significant impact in the way that pupils accessed learning. At Hampsthwaite, we managed this in a variety of ways which we were really proud of. 

• We created a safe environment in school for the children to learn in. From September 2020-June 2021 we did not have to close any bubbles within school. For those working at home, we ensured that a safe online environment was created and supported families with online safety information 
• Children had a live TEAMS meeting each morning with their class teachers. This enabled them the ask any questions about the day ahead and also provided the teacher with the opportunity to check on wellbeing and to set the expectations for the day. 
• We provided a personalised curriculum using Seesaw. This ensured that all children, including those with SEND, were exposed to appropriate expectations
• Pastoral and wellbeing phone calls, house visits and check-ins were structured each week. Meeting the emotional needs of our whole school community was a priority for us. We also introduced Wellbeing Wednesdays when staff would set positive mindset activities for the afternoon sessions. Parental feedback on this was extremely positive 
• Our remote curriculum matched the long and medium terms plans that would have been followed in school. We wanted to ensure that no child was disadvantaged when learning from home 

On the full re-opening of school, we devised detailed recovery curriculum plans for each year group (available on request) which prioritised certain aspects of the curriculum. In doing this, we felt that we could be highly effective in identifying and supporting with any lost learning.