Week 3: Phonics and School Curriculum

Self-Study Tasks

Using the Phonics input you have been given, collectively plan a Systematics Synthetic Phonics lesson. Use the Edge Hill Primary Principles of Planning to support you

According to OfSTED's (2019) Education Inspection Framework, what should an effective school curriculum contain?

Schools must provide a curriculum that gives pupils experience in linguistic, mathematical, scientific, technological, human and social, physical, and aesthetic and creative areas, promoting their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. (Bromley, 2019)

This should be through setting out the aims of a programme of education, including knowledge and understanding to gain at each stage (intent), translating this into a structure within an institution (implementation) and evaluating what knowledge and understanding pupils have gained (impact) (Schools Week, 2017).

An effective school curriculum should be ambitious and designed to give all learners, the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. Also, an effective curriculum needs to be clearly planned and sequenced towards building sufficient knowledge and skills for learning and employment in the future. Schools need to have the same ambitions for all pupils unless it is impractical e.g. SEND children. As well as this, students must study the full curriculum. Schools ensure this by teaching a wide range of subjects long-term, only specialising when needed. (Ofsted, 2019).

How can a school curriculum incorporate an understanding of working memory?

In order for a school to encourage children to store and manipulate information effectively, teachers should be consistently incorporating verbal and interactive activities that stimulate the working memory in lessons. It is thought that children’s struggles with reading difficulties and mathematics deficits in school can be due to poor working memory. This can also be the case for children who have special educational needs. This poor working memory leads to difficulties transferring information from temporary storage into long-term memory. This can be counteracted by introducing children to tasks that come with brief and simple instructions for children to follow, that can be looked back over and repeated. As well as this, breaking down a task into smaller, separate activities can help children with their working memory. Also, by developing coping strategies for children can help when they are feeling overwhelmed, encouraging them to be independent learners. The use of memory-aids, such displays, and encouragement is also beneficial to children with poor working memory. (Alloway, 2006).

The brain should be given information that it can link with visual aids to increase the function of the working memory, presented with new information in chunks. In lessons, the focus should be upon inputting the information the children need to know, ideally within 15 minutes for it to benefit their working memory. To support the storing of new information in the working memory, visual aids, such as word banks, pictures, toolkits and pictures can be used. As well as this, teachers consistently questioning children to recall the new information can be helpful. In addition, the pupils can use information resources such as knowledge organisers to quiz themselves on key information.

How do maths hubs support schools?

Maths hubs help schools by giving advice and guidance on how to teach the subject of maths in primary schools. They look to improve maths education by developing practice and expertise within schools’ maths education, through projects and schemes. This overall benefits the pupils at school. (NCETM, 2021).

At your school, investigate: topics and themes used by school for curriculum delivery, how the curriculum is organised/delivered, e.g. rolling programmes. Also, investigate summative data that has been published by the school, e.g. Phonics screening data, SATs data

At Nicol Mere, the curriculum is split into the different subjects; Art, Computing, Design Technology, EYFS, Geography, History, Maths, MFL, Music, PE, RE, Reading and Phonics, Science, and Writing. The aim of their curriculum is to inspire and challenge pupils to be the best they can be, focussing on high academic standards achieved through sequenced learning and a skills based curriculum, and giving the children a wide variety of learning opportunities and knowledge, alongside values and aspirations regardless of ability or background. The curriculum is delivered through high quality coaching and mentoring by highly skilled teachers to small group sizes, continuously improving by monitoring and reflection. Teachers used sequenced knowledge and progressive skills to consistently build on children’s learning, which is used and applied in all lessons and year groups.

Focussing on the PSHE curriculum, as my minor specialism, the ‘Keeping Ourselves Safe’ curriculum aims to equip children with a good understanding of the knowledge and skills needed to make safe and informed decisions in life. (Nicol Mere School, 2021). This curriculum was created based on the views of parents, staff, children and governors, focused on the needs of the children. The curriculum covers:

• Physical Health and Wellbeing

• Keeping Safe and Managing Risk

• Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing

• Sex and Relationship Education

• Drug, Alcohol and Tobacco Education

• Financial Capability and Economic Wellbeing

• Identity, Society and Equality

Nicol Mere's summative data includes SATs results from 2016-2019, split into Year 2 (Key Stage 1) and Year 6 (Key Stage 2) - none have been released for 2020 due to COVID. The results are separated into reading, writing, maths and a combined score. This is structured alongside the national average, showing Nicol Mere scored higher in all categories than the national average. The Phonics Screening Test is also published, showing Nicol Mere's result of 98% (2019), compared to the national average result 82%.

Mentor-Led Discussion

What is your local maths hub and what does it offer? Do the school engage with it?

During our discussion, we talked about how Nicol Mere are not currently part of a maths hub because they have members of staff who specialise in maths. Therefore, these staff members have devised the curriculum that Nicol mere follows, meaning they have no need for support from a maths hub. Their curriculum sets out what the different year groups need to cover. Nicol Mere also provides extra CPD training for its' staff to make sure they are delivering the maths curriculum to the highest standard. Nicol Mere's pupils gain very high maths results, so there is no need for a maths hub.

How has the school curriculum been organised, particularly in relation to COVID? How is it organised in relation to the OfSTED Education Inspection Framework (OfSTED, 2019)?

We discussed how there has been no major changes to Nicol Mere's curriculum due to COVID, as the online learning is still following the curriculum originally created. However, at the end of the previous lockdown when the pupils returned to schools, teachers had to provide less time to foundation subject lessons and more time to maths, reading and writing lessons, as some children had fell behind in these during online learning. As a result, Nicol Mere are having to compromise the foundation subjects' curriculums, picking out the most important information for children to learn in order to ensure their maths, reading and writing learning is complete.

The curriculum at Nicol Mere follows the three step rule of intent, implementation and impact. Every subject follows this. The curriculum focuses on ambitious learning of knowledge and skills in lessons, providing the good subject knowledge to children and eliminating any misconceptions, and finally what this means for the children, ensuring they develop good skills and knowledge to be able to move forward.

What summative assessment data is published and how does it compare with local/national data?

Nicol Mere's published summative data includes the phonics screening test and the SATs results, laid out next to national average. This showed that in 2019, Nicol Mere were 'well above' the national average, in the top 1-5%. As well as this, 40% of children from disadvantaged backgrounds achieved over the national average.

Attainment - how did the children perform and did they get the results that they were expected to get

Progress - comparing the results from KS1 and KS2 and looking if there is any improvement

Locally within wigan, in 2019 Nicol Mere were 2nd in leaderboard of results. 95% of the children achieved expected or above expected, compared to Wigan's average of 67% and the whole of England's 65%. Nicol Mere is consistently in the top 10% nationally. This is down to the small group classes, the abundance of teachers at the school, and also that quite a few of Nicol Mere's teachers are specialised.

References

• ALLOWAY, T., 2006. How does working memory work in the classroom? Educational Research and Reviews [online]. 1 (4), pp 134-139. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/37244979_How_does_working_memory_work_in_the_classroom [Accessed 2 February 2021].

• BROMLEY, M., 2018. Curriculum design and delivery (Part 1) [online]. Available from: https://www.sec-ed.co.uk/best-practice/curriculum-design-and-delivery-part-1/ [Accessed 2 February 2021].

• NCETM, 2021. About Maths Hubs [online]. Available from: https://www.ncetm.org.uk/maths-hubs/about-maths-hubs/#:~:text=The%20core%20purpose%20of%20the,of%20all%20pupils%20and%20students. [Accessed 2 February 2021].

• NICOL MERE SCHOOL, 2021. PSHE Curriculum [online]. Available from: https://www.nicolmere.wigan.sch.uk/pshe-curriculum-and-working-with-others-to-keep-ourselves-safe [Accessed 2 February 2021].

• OFSTED, 2019, The education inspection framework [online]. Available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/801429/Education_inspection_framework.pdf [Accessed 2 February 2021].

• SCHOOLS WEEK, 2017. How schools can develop a strong curriculum [online]. Available from: https://schoolsweek.co.uk/how-schools-can-develop-a-strong-curriculum/ [Accessed 2 February 2021].