Our curriculum

Dale Hall Curriculum Statement

INTENT - Why do we teach what we teach?

At Dale Hall Primary School we provide a broad and balanced curriculum which builds on knowledge, understanding and skills for all pupils no matter what their starting points. We strive to celebrate and promote diversity, equality and inclusion.

Our priority is creating lifelong learners who are ready for their next steps in education. We have high aspirations for all our pupils and focus on making sure pupils are ready for life in our diverse world. We want pupils to leave Dale Hall with a breadth of memorable learning experiences and the cultural capital they need to be a citizen in modern Britain. We strive to guide our pupils on a magical learning journey full of memorable experiences.

At Dale Hall we believe in explicitly teaching our pupils how to manage their learning effectively so that they can become confident, inquisitive and independent learners. We want our pupils to know how to be successful by teaching them the skills they need to be able to accomplish tasks and experience learning for themselves. We offer this in our own unique Dale Hall way. This is based on extensive research, listening to our children and staff and on the excellent outcomes that we enable our pupils to achieve.

 What are our Dale Hall Curriculum Drivers?

All stakeholders have worked together to identify our key curriculum drivers which we feel lie at the heart of our curriculum design.

• Skills and knowledge
• Growth mindset
• Immersive child led learning
• Culture, diversity and enrichment
• Metacognition
• Citizenship and life skills

• Skills and knowledge

At Dale Hall each curriculum area has a skills/knowledge overview created by our curriculum leaders. These documents outline the skills pupils will progress through from Reception to Year 6 and are the main documents used for teachers to plan from. Learning at Dale Hall is focused on revisiting key skills and knowledge to ensure pupils can build on their prior learning to make maximum progress. Although we identify specific skills for each curriculum area, some skills will be taught in a thematic/cross curricular approach where there are natural links to be made. Making these links ensures that the learning becomes real and more meaningful to our children.  We do not believe in contriving links but in making the most of these where they naturally exist. Pupils are still taught to articulate the subject specific skills they are learning. (Our curriculum skills and knowledge overviews can be found on each curriculum area page of our website)

• Growth mindset

At Dale Hall we have worked hard to develop a culture of Growth mindset and this is important in all curriculum areas. We teach pupils to believe in the ‘power of yet’ and as teachers we have studied Carol Dweck’s work. More recently we have worked on uptodate research into how operating outside of your comfort zone can significantly improve performance. Pupils at Dale Hall are introduced to the principles of Growth mindset as soon as they begin in Reception and throughout their time with us they develop an understanding of the brain being a muscle they have to train and grow. We use our Dale Hall Growth hero character to discuss and explore growth mindset with pupils across the school. We teach pupils that mistakes help them to learn and that, in fact, making mistakes is crucial if we want to improve. We want all pupils at Dale Hall to feel comfortable stepping outside of their comfort zone and tackling challenge. When considering how we give feedback to pupils we ensure that we are praising the process rather than the outcome. We encourage a metacognitive style of reflecting so that pupils can recognise that their progress is individual to them. When pupils present with fixed mindset beliefs we support them to reframe their thinking and identify what skills, knowledge or practice they may need in order to improve.

• Immersive child led learning

All of our topics centre around a Power of Reading text and we ensure that where possible learning is linked to the topic. Through our focus on a key text we strive to create an immersive learning environment for pupils. Whilst each topic will have mapped out key skills we also encourage pupils to share their interests and take ownership of their learning. In Year 1-3 a ‘choose your learning’ approach using key principles of continuous provision is used. This means that much of the topic learning is child led and can be focused around children’s interests and curiosity. Continuous provision refers to carefully planned, open ended resources leading to an enabling environment which prompts independent learning and enquiry. At Dale Hall we have developed our own approach towards continuous provision in KS1 and elements are being taken into lower KS2. We call our approach ‘Choose your learning’. We use a mix between continuous provision, whole class learning, enhanced provision and adult led/focused learning. We use open ended questions to enhance opportunities for embedding the skills/knowledge being taught. 

·      Culture, diversity and enrichment

At Dale Hall our diverse curriculum aims to create pupils who:

• Are global citizens who want to make the world a better place
• Care about the world and have empathy with those around them
• Think critically, ask questions and are articulate about their own opinions
• Have the skills to understand and face an ever-changing world

We want our pupils to understand but also embrace diversity. This is particularly significant for Dale Hall as our school demographic has a lower than average proportion of pupils from minority ethnic origins. Our curriculum has been reviewed with careful consideration to ensure that we represent a diverse range of backgrounds. Our Power of reading texts ensure that pupils are presented with a variety of characters and settings. We aim to broaden and enrich children’s life experiences, opening their eyes to opportunities beyond their immediate world, igniting their curiosity and imagination and sparking their interest in all aspects of the world around them. We hope that through events and visitors such as sporting events, library visits, aspiration days, visits from experts and attending school trips we can broaden our children’s aspirations, experiences and cultural capital.

• Metacognition

At Dale Hall we teach pupils the skills they need to be successful learners. Our teachers have been through extensive training to enable them to understand how to teach specific metacognitive skills to the pupils which in turn will make the learner more aware of the process of learning. The EEF and IOA provided the research and funding for us to take this forward. We support all pupils to understand the ways in which they learn best. Our aim is for pupils to then use this to improve, extend and embed their skills and knowledge with a much better understanding of the process. Our pupils are now asking metacognitive questions, which are modelled consistently by our teachers and teaching assistants, as well as applying them to different subjects and task

• Citizenship and life skills

At Dale Hall we value that young people are growing up in an increasingly complex world. This presents many positive and exciting opportunities, but also many challenges and risks. In this environment, children and young people need to know how to be safe and healthy, and how to manage their academic, personal, emotional, moral and social lives in a positive way. At Dale Hall we work hard to provide a framework in which sensitive discussions can take place. Through our RSHE curriculum and our focus on diversity across the curriculum we support pupils to develop tolerance of others and to see things from different perspectives. We encourage pupils to be curious and to ask questions in order to better understand and make sense of the world around them. Through our community work we hope to develop active and responsible citizens who contribute positively to the local community and to society as a whole. Through our curriculum, we aim to raise aspirations and provide opportunities for children to discover their own strengths, interests and talents. We support all pupils at Dale Hall to stay safe and to prepare for life in modern Britain.

Power of reading

Exposing our pupils to high quality texts is at the heart of our curriculum and we use the Power of Reading across the school. The Power of Reading puts quality children’s literature at the heart of literacy learning and is built on years of research and best practice. The Power of Reading has helped us to create a high quality English curriculum which develops reading comprehension, grammar and writing composition aswell as fostering a whole school love of reading and writing.

Whilst we value that progression of skills and knowledge specific to individual all subjects is important, we also ensure that there is a clear focus on excellent teaching and learning. We are developing our own Dale Hall principles of learning to ensure that we bring learning across the curriculum to life, by making links, creating cross curricular immersive opportunities and giving pupils access to knowledge, skills and experiences that they may not normally have the chance to.

Principles of learning

At Dale Hall, we have developed our own set of principles that underpin our pedagogy. These principles ensure consistency and progression across the school and are based on research from the EEF and Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction. Rosenshine's principles come from three sources; research in cognitive science, research on master teachers and research on cognitive supports.

Our Dale Hall Principles of Learning are:

1. Readiness to Learn

2. Make your instructions explicit

3. Review/Re-cap/ Retrieve

4. Present new learning in small steps

5. Questioning must be effective

6. Model and scaffold the work

7. Practise new learning and skills

8. Ensure success for every child

9. Review Learning

Diversity curriculum review 2022/2023

Last year one of our school development priorities was ensuring diversity in all areas of the curriculum. Our leaders looked at at diversity in their curriculum area aswell as reviewing their skills and knowledge overviews to ensure depth and progression. 

Quite often diversity is misunderstood and people think we have to completely change the entire school curriculum to incorporate it. Instead, true representation of diversity can be achieved in small but mighty ways. The ability to add diversity into the everyday life at Dale Hall is right at our fingertips...

However it is also important to recognise that creating a diverse curriculum isn’t a quick fix.  Our curriculum review required curriculum leaders to rethink and review their curriculum areas to ensure that diversity is incorporated in a natural and purposeful way. 

Our diverse curriculum at Dale Hall aims to create pupils who:

• Are global citizens who want to make the world a better place
• Care about the world and have empathy with those around them
• Think critically, ask questions and are articulate about their own opinions
• Have the skills to understand and face an ever-changing world