Our Curious Curriculum

Learning at Callicroft

A great curriculum is rooted in its own locality and context and meets the needs of its own learners, whilst exposing them to the national and global requirements and expectations.

Our Curious Curriculum model covers all aspects of a broad and balanced curriculum that will develop well-rounded learners. We believe that these 6 elements are at the heart of an excellent primary experience. Teachers will be expected to understand, develop and deliver on each of these 6 areas:

Learning environment
The English and Maths learning sequence
Metacognition and self-regulation
Our curious curriculum
Our emotionally literate curriculum
High aspirations and the importance of feedback and assessment

Our Curious Curriculum

Our Curious Curriculum has been carefully designed to engage learners as active participants in their learning journey. We believe that learners are at their most successful when their imagination is stimulated, their curiosity is heightened and their learning makes links to their lives and the wider world.

Our curious curriculum is a framework that develops creativity, critical thinking and discovery whilst ensuring a clear focus on the intellectual concept that is being taught and the knowledge needed to understand the concept.

Working with a range of partners in education, our high expectations, innovative curriculum and distinct approach to learning are making a real difference. Callicroft is a constantly improving, outward-facing school that fosters enquiring minds and the spirit of curiosity.

“The curriculum can look good on paper, but it is when it meets the learner that matters most. It is the skill of the teacher in bringing it alive that determines whether the learner makes progress or not. This is why the link between curriculum and pedagogy needs to be strong at every point in the chain from planning to assessment.”

Professor Mick Waters

Our Curriculum Aims

We set high expectations and provide opportunities for all learners to achieve, responding to any learning needs.
We offer learning experiences and environments that inspire learners to question the world around them, develop their ideas and grow as lifelong learners.
We provide a consistently high quality education based on current academic research and pedagogical principles.
We ensure, through a holistic approach, the development of our learners’ physical, social and emotional well-being. This supports their resilience and future life chances.

Pedagogical Principles

We develop local, national and global knowledge and understanding by providing enriching experiences, developing global citizenship, celebrating diversity and creating cultural capital.
We are proactive in removing barriers to learning, through early identification, effective intervention, improvement through partnership and raising aspirations.
We provide a rich, multi-sensory environment that promotes, celebrates and provokes learning and reflects the importance of aesthetics and beauty.

We believe that a learner’s experience in school should ensure not only the knowledge needed to access academic success, but also the careful development and progression of skills in discrete subject areas.

Our Curious Curriculum embeds a concept-driven approach that incorporates both knowledge and skills in an enquiry-led thematic curriculum that is embedded in application and context.

In teaching our Curious Curriculum, teachers draw upon a wide repertoire of teaching styles.

Direct Instruction
Teacher exposition
Problem solving
Purposeful practice
Discovery

This is where the curriculum and pedagogy meet, and appropriate teaching styles are crucial for learners to truly acquire new learning and embed this into their long-term memory. Therefore, our Curious Curriculum places great importance on the many elements that are essential for learners to create a schema and new learning to grow into rich knowledge that can be retrieved, applied, analysed and reflected upon.

Responsible Global Citizens

The Curious Curriculum is based around developing a child’s knowledge, skills, and attitudes, promoting enquiry and questioning. It encourages children to be active and to take responsibility for their learning whilst making them aware of how learning about intellectual concepts (big ideas) and links to the Sustainable Development Goals can impact on their own lives and the lives of others.

A theme consists of...

Intellectual Concepts

What do we want learners to understand?

Knowledge Box

What do we want learners to know? What are the key pieces of knowledge they must have in order to understand the Intellectual Concept? What vocabulary will they need to learn?

Box of Entitlement

What will every learner experience? How do we ensure equity for every learner?

Enquiry Questions

What do we want learners to wonder about? What are the bigger philosophical questions and ideas we want learners to think about? How do we encourage them to make links and connections to other pieces of learning that they have acquired? These should be ‘un-Google-able’ questions!

Polished Products

What skills will our staff teach across the theme to enable learners to showcase their learning through a polished product? A polished product could be a published piece of writing, a piece of artwork, a presentation, a meal etc. There will be a polished product to showcase each enquiry question and learners will be encouraged to present this in their own way and with an element of choice as we encourage our pupils to be independent learners and follow their own interests and lines of enquiry.

Local to Global

What is the relevance to the learner and the wider world? How will this relate to the local and the wider world and how will this impact on our learners (linking learning to the Sustainable Development Goals)? We believe in helping our pupils to become responsible global citizens.