Mawnan’s Curriculum development has been, and continues to be, collaboratively and inclusively designed. Mawnan’s Curriculum is always evolving, always adapting but always centred around our learners. When considering our curriculum we place the learner at the ‘core’ of what we do. From there we build, using a sequence of layers – each one deeply considered so that we use the most up-to-date thinking and training to support our understanding before moving into the creation stage.
Principles
‘A curriculum breathes life into a school’s or teacher’s philosophy of education; it is purpose enacted.’ William D. (2013)
It was important to draw together the thoughts and principles of the teaching and support staff as each brings a different philosophy of education, each brings their own personal strengths, culture and ambitions. These place different emphasis on curriculum design but, when drawn together, these are what will make the curriculum belong to Mawnan.
When a person engages in designing the Mawnan Curriculum they will always consider these agreed principles: Balance, Rigor, Coherence, Progression, Appropriateness, Knowledge and Relevance.
With this in mind, we used Mentimeter to draw together our collective thoughts about each of the layers we would need to work through. We began at the core…
The Learner
With the learner at the core of everything that we consider, this was the logical place to begin. Who are our learners? What do we want for them? What will they need? All questions that were discussed and fed back on.
The Learning Environment
When designing a curriculum we wanted to make sure that we were using our surroundings to our full advantage.
Teacher Development
What would staff need so that they are able to deliver the curriculum the most effectively?
Curriculum Development
The beginning of the Mawnan Curriculum
Having considered each of the other layers to this point, we decided what we really wanted for our learners: build facts that children can be fluent in, build knowledge that can be applied to a range of learning and build skills that can be used in a range of learning situations and that encourage independence.
Planned Learning - Expeditions, Journeys, Voyages and Themes
The learners at Mawnan School were not to be passive, they will very much be an active part of every learning experience. With this in mind, the Mawnan Curriculum can be seen as a Voyage – an incredible Voyage that takes them from the first tentative steps in Reception to the bold beginnings of Year 7.
The Voyage will be broken down by the teachers into Journeys. Year-long Journeys completed in seaworthy vessels – from Oppies to Darts.
Journeys are nothing without exploration and for that you need to go on an Expedition - half-termly Expeditions into new, undiscovered, rich and challenging environments.
Expedition:
An Expedition will contain the new learning and opportunities to create connections. The Expeditions will carefully interweave knowledge between the Expeditions they take during the year. Oppotunities to return to previous Expeditions will be offered at various points in the year to ensure that knowledge is reviewed and strengthened.
Journey:
A Journey through a year group will interleave knowledge from other parts of the Voyage across their years at Mawnan. There will be threads that allow pupils to connect their learning by building on prior knowledge and experiences. This interweaving strengthens connectivity between prior Expeditions.
Voyage:
Mawnan’s Curriculum Voyage can be seen as linear in design – moving the pupils along a mapped out timeline of well linked, carefully chosen events that can each be viewed separately but are better understood as a whole.
The key aim of interweaving and interleaving is to build linked sustainable learning with relational understanding.
The 6 Themes:
The national curriculum will be covered and revisited using six overarching themes:
Each theme is used as a design influence over where the Expedition will go.
Reception to Y2 access the national curriculum and Mawnan School’s own curriculum through a cycle of two Journeys (A and B) to complete 12 Expeditions. Years 3 -5 set off through 15 different Expeditions over 3 years (Journey A ,B and C). Year 6 embarks on an annual cycle of 6 Expeditions.
Each Journey is built specifically for our children using the processes previously discussed and is based firmly on the bedrock of the National Curriculum. It is made up of knowledge and skills that marry with our school’s ethos and strengths. These include: building facts that children are fluent in, building knowledge that can be applied to a range of learning and building skills that can be used in a range of learning situations and that encourage independence.
Each theme (and thus each Expedition) is designed to revisit previous learning, secure prior learning and create implicit links to prior learning (interleaving). Each theme and its Expeditions contains new learning that must be secured and remembered and pupils have planned chances to revisit this learning in the future. Each Expedition contains links across the subjects being taught so that overlaps are obvious ,but are not ‘forced’ or unnecessarily created (interweaving). Therefore, each theme and its current Expedition contains high value experiences which support the acquisition of knowledge. It is here that the knowledge held by the teachers at Mawnan School is imparted through a series of well-planned lessons whose delivery is constantly reflected upon and refined (improved pedagogy).
Curriculum Maps
Each Key Stage has mapped out the National Curriculum to check its coverage across the Journeys. This ensures that every child receives their full entitlement but also allows the teachers to map out the order they will be taught so that interweaving and interleaving are planned for.
For KS2 the maps for each subject are laid out to give an overview of the KS2 Voyage.
Knowledge Road Maps
The teachers then turn to adding the layers of knowledge that take the Mawnan learners beyond the National Curriculum on their Voyage through the Key Stage.
Expedition Plans
With the core knowledge and National Curriculum mapped out, teachers can then focus on their in depth Expedition Plans. These are much more comprehensive and include each of the subjects that will be covered. For each subject the plan shows which parts are being revisited (interweaved and interleaved), new learning, vocabulary, skills, key questions and cultural capital.
Delivery of Learning
We agreed that when we plan a curriculum, we should plan with its delivery in mind. We felt that the lessons, and sequences of lessons within it, should have Rosenshine’s principles of learning at their core.
Therefore we will plan to/for:
Obtain a high success rate (measured in formative assessment) – teach in small steps, plan for challenge, plan questions, provide models, promote pupil thinking,
Scaffold – Build in scaffolds that can be removed. These should include modelling, thinking aloud, rule making, building marking ladders and discussion/thinking groups.
Review – check for understanding, ensure that material is returned to within the term, year and across key stages so than knowledge becomes embedded in long term memory.
Skills
Parallel to the acquisition of knowledge will be the acquisition of learning skills. Mawnan School have decided on a set of skills that will be best developed by each theme. These skills will be embedded throughout the learning and opportunities will be offered to demonstrate the skill, practise the skill (with guided practise) and independently use the skill. Again, each skill will draw upon its previous application and an understanding that the procedure is flexible and can be used else-where. Each child will be taught to be reflective about the use of these skills; where they can be applied and which of them they used most effectively (metacognition).
Evaluation
Evaluation of both knowledge and skills will be done through a mixture of planned interleaved tasks such as: quizzes, independent writing, research tasks, evaluative tasks, pupil interview and testing. The main aim of any assessment will be to measure the positive impacts that the Mawnan Curriculum has had on our pupils.
Curriculum Review
Planned cycles of curriculum review will ensure that the Mawnan Curriculum and the Voyage of its learners will only ever go from strength to strength.