We have constructed a curriculum that is ambitious and designed to give all learners, including the most disadvantaged and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) or high needs, the knowledge and high expectations. Our curriculum is coherently planned and sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge and skills needed for future learning. All pupils study the full curriculum and it has been designed and adapted to make it unique to us here at Dewhurst St Mary.
We have a rigorous approach to the teaching of reading which develops learners’ confidence and enjoyment in reading and this is at the heart of our curriculum. At the early stages of learning to read, reading materials are closely matched to learners’ phonics knowledge.
Teachers use their subject knowledge to present subject matter clearly, promoting appropriate discussion about the subject matter they are teaching. Through assessing they check understanding systematically, identify misconceptions accurately and provide clear, direct feedback. In doing so, they respond and adapt their teaching as necessary, without unnecessarily elaborate or differentiated approaches. Assessment is used to help learners embed and use knowledge fluently or to check understanding and inform teaching. Teaching is designed to help learners to remember in the long term the content they have been taught and to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts, developing detailed knowledge and skills across the curriculum.
