Our Great Place to Learn

Aims

The aims of the wider curriculum at Ash Croft Primary, is to give all pupils the opportunity to acquire, develop and embed knowledge and skills in a wide range of subjects. Pupils are given the chance to experience, discover and explore knowledge through engaging Projects as well as developing key skills to ensure they are making progress in all areas of the curriculum.

Engrained in the pedagogy is the research linked to cognitive science. This research focuses on how our brains acquire and use information. This cognitive research also provides suggestions on how we might overcome the limitations of our working memory (i.e., the mental “space” in which thinking occurs) when learning new material.

The long-term aim, through our teaching, is for the knowledge to ‘stick’. The starting point for this is an exciting and engaging curriculum that builds on and makes connections with pupils’ prior knowledge. In addition to this, our teaching will ensure there are regular opportunities for pupils to re-visit, retrieve and elaborate on the knowledge being taught as these are all strategies that will support subject knowledge being committed to pupils’ long-term memory.

Research Based

Our curriculum builds on extensive research into what works in teaching and learning. Some of the research our curriculum is built upon includes

The Curriculum by Mary Myatt
Building Communities of Engaged Readers by Teresa Cremin
Reading Rediscovered by Doug Lemov et al
Bringing Words to Life by Isabel Beck
Closing the Vocabulary Gap by Alex Quigley
Glow Maths Hub action research headed by Steve Lomax
EEF Guidance reports

Each subject has been carefully thought through to ensure content is structured appropriately and that attention is paid to pupils remembering what they have learnt.

Curriculum Drivers

Please click on the headings below, to discover the way the subject is taught. We are currently using the Cornerstones Curriculum and reviewing the impact of this.