Rednal Hill Junior School

Curriculum update 2020-2021

OUR SCHOOL PLAN – for academic year 2020-2021

Our first priority is the safety of everyone in our school community. We know that you, as parents, will have many questions and concerns. We hope this document will answer your questions and will reduce the concerns that you have. We also hope that it will provide you with information around how we will care for your child and what school-life will look like. We have used the current guidance from the Government, as well as our core values, to action plan and make decisions about how pupils return full-time, with safety being our number one priority.

School will open to students in full from Thursday 3^rd September 2020

We hope that you find the following information useful so that you are able to understand what school-life will be like and the measures that we have put into place to prioritise the safety of everyone:

Recovery Curriculum

As our children return to school, we felt it was important for you to be aware of the approach that we are taking as a school. With that in mind, we have provided a summary below of both our approach and the thinking behind it. We hope that you feel this approach will support your child’s well-being as they begin their re-engagement with learning at school. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or would like more information.

A Recovery Curriculum: Loss and Life for our Children and Schools Post Pandemic

Introduction

Rednal Hill Junior School have put the child’s well-being at the centre of our thinking.  We acknowledge that the children will have had different experiences during this time. However, the common thread running through all is the loss of routine, structure, friendship, opportunity and freedom. These losses can trigger anxiety in any child. Some of you may have experienced this with your own children. We know that an anxious child is not in a place to learn effectively. So with this in mind, the school community has thought about the most effective way to support your child’s ability to learn.  This approach will encompass and support the academic expectations for your child.

Professor Barry Carpenter has developed the Recovery Curriculum, as a response to the losses described above. It is a way for schools to help children come back into school life, acknowledging the experiences the children have had.  We want children to be happy, feel safe and able to be engaged in their learning. We have decided that a way to achieve this for the children is to acknowledge the importance of helping them lever back into school life using the following 5 Levers.

Lever 1: Relationships – we can’t expect our students to return joyfully, and many of the relationships that were thriving, may need to be invested in and restored. We need to plan for this to happen, not assume that it will. Reach out to greet them, use the relationships we build to cushion the discomfort of returning.

Lever 2: Community – we must recognise that curriculum will have been based in the community for a long period of time. We need to listen to what has happened in this time, understand the needs of our community and engage them in the transitioning of learning back into school.

Lever 3: Transparent Curriculum – all of our students will feel like they have lost time in learning and we must show them how we are addressing these gaps, consulting and co-constructing with our students to heal this sense of loss.

Lever 4: Metacognition – in different environments, students will have been learning in different ways. It is vital that we make the skills for learning in a school our environment explicit to our students to reskill and rebuild their confidence as learners.

Lever 5: Space – to be, to rediscover self, and to find their voice on learning in this issue. We’ll work incredibly hard to ensure all of our children are ready to learn and make the necessary progress to catch-up. We will provide opportunities for pupils to explore and reflect across the curriculum whilst still maintaining high expectations.

Alongside our recovery curriculum, we’ll also be performing some key baselines in late September (weeks 4 & 5, these a little later than first mentioned to allow for the implementation of the recovery curriculum) so that we have a thorough understanding of the gaps in children’s learning. This information will help to form the teaching style and content for the autumn term and beyond. It will also help to inform us of what specific, targeted interventions pupils may need. We aim to attempt to get back to ‘normal’ as soon as possible and we will aim for this to be achieved by at least half-term. The beginning of the term will involve learning opportunities and activities that promote the 5 levers stated above which will help children to be ready to learn effectively. The more ‘formal’ approach to lessons will be introduced gradually so that we do not overwhelm the children and this will aim to ensure that they feel successful right from the very start, despite any missed learning that they may have experienced over the lockdown/school closure period. The focus will be gently returning to some semblance of routine whilst supporting children with their emotional well-being so that they feel engaged and ready to learn.

Rednal Hill Junior School Curriculum Intent Statement

Intent Statement

At Rednal Hill Junior School our curriculum is driven by our key values, these are drawn from the fundamental British values of: democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs, and for those without a faith. We aim to provide our learners with the appropriate support, experiences, skills and knowledge to develop as independent, confident, successful learners, able to play a full and active role in modern society.

We have shaped our curriculum into four key priority areas to achieve our goal, whilst responding to the particular needs of our learners and the community we serve. We prioritise learners being secondary ready in our approach to curriculum delivery. Alongside the key priority areas is an overarching desire for our curriculum to be enjoyable and to foster a lifelong love of learning. The development of effective communication skills is interwoven though each of our key priority areas.

Curriculum Implementation

RHJS engages all learning styles using a variety of resources: National Curriculum Statutory Guidance, Values Based Learning, Outdoor Learning and enhancement opportunities, which support the teaching of our curriculum.

The implementation of this curriculum is in its infancy. We have woven together: science, the humanities, the arts and English and used a thematic approach to deliver these. They are taught in 5 units over the course of the academic year. We have looked to find links with the following discrete subjects: mathematics, music, PE, PSHE, RE, MFL, computing and music and will continue this work over the course of 2020-21.

To support committing knowledge to long term memory we have introduced "Knowledge Prompt Cards" for the humanities and science, we intend to push this out to other subjects. The approach uses multiple testing moments for smaller pieces of learning. 

Research

RHJS recognises the benefits of utilising evidence based research to support our practice. Over the next two years we will be promoting and concentrating on elements of Rosenshine’s Principle of Instruction as a means to enhance classroom practice.

Values at RHJS

Our values are at the core of all we do. We use a rolling programme of values’ assemblies to promote these and look to further promote them through actions and activities in school.

Subject Leaders

At RHJS we have subject leaders who oversee, develop, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of their subject within school. Staff are committed to delivering high quality learning experiences throughout the curriculum. Support staff have developed their strengths in order to further enhance the quality of learning.