Curriculum

Our Vision, Aims, Values, Legacy and Curriculum

Our Vision

We believe in promoting the individual child, within a happy, secure environment where children and staff feel valued and respect each other.

We make a difference

Our Aims

 

• Ensure each child respects and is responsible for themselves and others.
• Develop a sense of pride and self-esteem in each child and instil confidence so that they may become independent learners and active global citizens.
• Promote high standards in both academic achievement and behaviour.
• Forge close links and develop co-operation with our rich and diverse school community, with governors, the local, national and global community.
• Develop problem solving skills, encouraging our children to think creatively and approach tasks with a range of strategies.
• Promote resilience and perseverance, giving our children the ability to succeed in all they do.
• Embrace the drive, passion and commitment that our children have for learning and for life.

Our Values

Commitment	Responsibility
Co-operation	Respect
Compassion	Resilience

 

Our Legacy

After being at our school, you will be able to look at the wider world with the confidence and knowledge that you can make a difference, and that you matter.

 

Our School Curriculum

Our aim is to provide our children with an engaging, exciting and empowering curriculum that equips them for today and tomorrow.

Rationale

We have adapted our curriculum to meet the needs of children who are mobile learners. We believe strongly that the curriculum must meet the needs of our children and the teaching and learning needs to reflect the highest of standards and expectations we have of them. Our children often need further teaching and modelling of emotion and social development due to their military lifestyle, consequently, this is built into lessons and the curriculum reflects these needs. We adopt whole school topics – a schemes and theme approach is used to link subjects in a meaningful way following the EYFS Curriculum and the National Curriculum.

Intent

At Dishforth Airfield Primary School the curriculum is designed to: recognise children’s prior learning, provide first hand learning experiences, allow the children to develop interpersonal skills, build resilience and become creative, critical thinkers.

Our definition of learning is to: know more, understand more and remember more.

Every child is recognised as a unique individual. We celebrate and welcome differences within our diverse, highly mobile school community. The ability to learn is underpinned by the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, concepts and values with a vision to prepare them for life beyond primary school. We constantly provide enrichment opportunities to engage learning. We believe that childhood should be a happy, investigative and an enquiring time, where there are no limits to curiosity and there is a thirst for new experiences and knowledge. We use our Dishforth Airfield Values (Commitment, Co-operation, Compassion, Responsibility, Respect, Resilience) to promote positive attitudes to learning which reflect the values and skills needed to promote responsibility for learning and future success.

Passport of experiences

In conjunction with parents, children and staff, we have created a passport of experiences for the children to undertake whilst they are here at Dishforth Airfield – a passport for each phase in the school: EYFS, Key Stage 1, Lower Key Stage 2 and Upper Key Stage 2.

The passports contain a list of activities for the children to tick off throughout the age phase. The activities are designed to encourage children to either: learn new skills, develop resilience, build confidence, collaborate, problem solve, risk take or persevere.

The activities are wide ranging in nature and help pupils to become more resilient in: practical activities, outdoor learning, investigation, enterprising activities.

We believe the passport of experiences will enrich a child’s education and journey through primary school. These will be woven into the curriculum each year and may be a mini adventure, be part of the whole school theme or take the form of a lesson within an enquiry.

Community involvement

Community involvement is an integral part of our curriculum, inviting families and visitors to facilitate learning new skills and sharing experiences such as assemblies, curriculum enrichment and cultural events.

Children leave Dishforth Airfield with the confidence and skills to make decisions, self-evaluate, make connections and become lifelong learners.

After being at our school, you will be able to look at the wider world with the confidence and knowledge that you can make a difference, and that you matter.

Implementation

Global Dimension – the eight aspects of the Global Dimension are taught throughout out the academic year.  This is through the whole school topic where two aspects are targeted in order for the children to recognise and learn about their responsibilities as citizens of the global community.  It equips them with the skills required to make informed decisions and take responsible actions.

SMSC and British Values - Throughout the school we promote the values of tolerance, respect and responsibilities amongst others, helping to prepare our children for life in modern Britain. In school we have a Values award that the children use to vote on weekly, recognising and valuing other pupil’s contributions to school life and who are living our core values.  We discuss local and national elections and what they mean for the way the country is run. We arrange a variety of trips to develop our pupils understanding of the world around us. As a school we also discuss how the rules in school relate to rules and laws in the wider-world, including the importance of following and the consequences for breaking these laws. We welcome all our new arrivals with the respect and support of a large extended family. Every child is welcomed into our school and are placed on our “Our School One Community Board” and place a flower on our arrivals and departures tree. 

We promote mutual respect for others throughout everything we do in and out of school. We give our pupils a range of responsibilities and jobs around school from personal responsibilities, through to classroom responsibilities and whole school responsibilities like helping with school dinners, sports and Eco leaders, peers listeners. We have close links with our school community and our hall celebrates our school community with their flag hanging from the ceiling.

Metacognitive Approach – at Dishforth Airfield, our teaching and learning approach to metacognition aims to support our children to become independent, resilient and reflective learners and problem solvers.  We believe that a metacognitive approach supports our children in gaining a deeper understanding across the curriculum and supports their confidence in problem solving in addition to developing their language for reasoning.

Laying the foundations of our metacognitive approach to teaching and learning is the LORIC family who encompass the important life-skills of leadership, organisation, resilience, initiative and communication. Each term we focus on one of our LORIC family characters, therefore supporting our children to develop their understanding, skills and experiences of each attribute at an age appropriate level.

Working Memory – is an ability that allows us to work with information. It helps us learn and perform even basic tasks. Long-term memory and working memory. Long Term Memory can be considered as a ‘store of knowledge’.  Working Memory is where info that is being actively processed is held it is where ‘thinking’ happens and involves the ability to hold and manipulate information. At Dishforth Airfield we aim to develop children’s ability to move information from their working memory to their long-term memory and thus able to manipulate it to use in a variety of contexts and learning opportunities. 

At Dishforth Airfield we know children can hold approximately seven pieces of information in their working memory at any one time so lessons are structured with to rehearse key information, refresh and make links to previous learning. This cycle of overlearning is hoped to move information from their working memory to their long term memory.

High Quality Outcomes - at Dishforth Airfield we pride ourselves on our ability to ensure that every child makes outstanding progress from their individual starting points to when they leave us. We assess each child when they arrive to form a baseline assessment that we use to show the rapid progress they make. Pre-assessment and pre-teaching forms planning and assessment in order to narrow gaps between groups of children, so that all groups can reach their full potential. Through this, key vocabulary and concepts are pre-taught to children who need it.

Our curriculum adopts an approach whereby we teach key skills in each of the curriculum areas and then move towards deepening children’s understanding through a problem solving and reasoning structure; thus allowing children to have a deep and mastery understanding of key objectives. Throughout the units of work, we also use Proof of Progress Quizzes (POP Quizzes) in order to test understanding and adapt planning accordingly in order to allow children to make rapid progress.

Enrichment – launches, landings (publish and present their work for a public audience), passport of experiences, enterprise - throughout the year enrichment opportunities are carefully planned for to ensure children have an engaging introduction and purpose to their learning. For each new topic we have an exciting launch and landing which is used to fully immerse children into their topic. To do this, children may get to experience a themed day, a school trip, a special visitor or a new experience. Over the course of the year opportunities are planned for children to collect stamps in their passport of experiences. These are the experiences we feel that every child should have the opportunity to partake in throughout their time at our school.

Social and Emotional Wellbeing - at Dishforth Airfield Primary School we recognise that social and emotional well-being are crucial to children’s ongoing success. Children are actively taught about their emotions and how to manage them throughout their time at school. Staff use the ‘emotion coaching’ model of de-regulation to support children to identify their emotions, cope with big feelings and problem solve for the future. Additionally, children learn about their own brains and how their feelings, thoughts and actions interact as part of a weekly assembly and during class time. As a highly-mobile school, we know that it is crucial for our children to be given the skills that they need to form good relationships, wherever they find themselves in the world. From the beginning of Nursery to the end of Year 6 children are actively taught how to socialise, be good friends and tolerate differences, giving them the skills that they need to become confident, welcoming and out-going citizens.

Impact

Our children leave us with a broad, rich and deep knowledge of the curriculum studied, mastering skills and retaining knowledge so that they are well prepared for the next stage of their education, wherever that may be. At the end of each key stage the vast majority of pupils who have been at the school for the full key stage have sustained the content taught, that is they remember it and are fluent in it, with some pupils having a greater understanding. 

We measure the impact of our curriculum in the following ways:

• The quality of standards achieved against the planned outcomes;
• A celebration of learning for each term involving families;
• Proof of Progress (POP) Quizzes at the end of each learning cycle to demonstrate acquisition of new learning;
• Pupil discussions about their learning – their attitudes and development;
• Termly assessment and tracking of individual pupils’ progress in each curriculum subject;
• Subject leader monitoring
• Moderation of standards
• Parental feedback

Children leave Dishforth Airfield with the skills to make decisions, self-evaluate, make connections and become lifelong learners. They are able to look at the wider world with the confidence and knowledge that they can make a difference, and that they matter.