Raising Attainment
Digital Skills/Literacy
Community Participation
Global Links
Children’s Rights
Nurture
Diversity and Inclusion
Play Pedagogy
Curriculum Drivers underpin the curriculum rationale and the learning experiences our pupils will undertake during their time at Mortlach Primary School.
The drivers are the focus of our curriculum delivery and are at the forefront of everything we do.
It is important that drivers are updated to ensure that a school curriculum is relevant, current and meeting the needs of its learners.
Staff accessed school level assessment data, national, regional and school improvement priorities, and identified what they believed our curriculum drivers should be.
Mrs Gordon met with the House and Vice Captains to share the suggested curriculum drivers. The Captains were asked if they felt the driver was important, and if they did why? The feedback from Captains was:
Raising Attainment
'Yes – because it encourages you to try new things and you might think that you can’t do it until you try.'
'You don’t need to worry about anyone making fun of you for what you do.'
Digital Skills/Literacy
'I agree because it teaches you to use lots of new digital skills that you might use in the future.'
'You probably will have to use them in the future for jobs.'
'Most jobs are switching to digital and people are working from home.'
'Being an adult you have to use digital skills for everything.'
Community Participation
'Yes because we get to learn more about the environment around us.'
'They teach us about things that our teachers might not know about.'
'It gives us another perspective.'
'It encourages you to try new things.'
Global Links
'Yes because we are not always going to live in Dufftown.'
'Important to learn about other cultures.'
'We have been learning other languages so that we can interact with other people.'
Children's Rights
'Definitely because you need to feel safe, nurtured and cared for at school.'
'It make you feel like you are not the only one going through something.'
Nurture
'Yes because sometimes if you are upset you need quiet time in nurture areas.'
'If someone is having a bad day they could start to affect the learning of other people in their class.'
Diversity and Inclusion
'Yes because everyone is different.'
'Lots of people like different things and by knowing about what others like we can join in.'
'We can listen to others opinions but don’t have to join in if we don’t want to.'
Play Pedagogy
'Yes because it encourages you to learn more.'
'It helps you to learn more.'
'Prefer to do hands on activities – especially if it is a tricky subject that we might not know much about.'
'Through play we can understand things more.'
'STEM means that we are learning through building and constructing and it’s still fun.'
'It helps people who prefer visual and hands on learning.'
Then House and Vice Captains met to share the new curriculum drivers with all pupils in their houses. The Captains asked pupils to vote on whether or not they agreed with the new drivers. The Captains asked Mrs Gordon if it would be possible for voting coins to be purchased, as they felt this would be an easier way for all pupils to be able to share their opinions. A green coin would mean pupils agreed with the drivers, a red coin meant that they did not agree. The curriculum drivers meeting was the first time that the voting coins were used. Results are below:
Buchromb – 37 Green
Kininvie – 38 Green and 3 Red
Balvenie – 35 Green and 2 Red
As can be seen by the results above the majority of pupils agreed with the new drivers.
Parents/carers play a vital role in their child’s education. Therefore, it is important that parents/carers are aware of the school drivers. Parents were asked to give their feedback on the new curriculum drivers. 100% of parents who gave their feedback agreed that the drivers were relevant and suitable. Some of the parent’s comments are given below:
‘Drivers identified are relatable and feel very appropriate and meet the needs of my children. Both are engaged by activities. Thank you.’
‘I think that the curriculum drivers are current, relevant and meet the needs of my children.’
Our House and Vice Captains decided that visuals would be the best way to ensure that all our pupils understood our drivers. The visuals they produced are now used across the school.