At Oldfield Park Infant School, we value and respect all children and each other as individuals. We believe in providing a happy, safe and positive environment in which creativity, personal development and a love of learning will flourish.

Intent

At Oldfield Park Infant School, we are passionate about promoting and instilling a love for learning through an engaging and exciting curriculum for all our children.  We aim to provide all pupils, including those who are disadvantaged, with the knowledge and skills needed to become independent learners and thinkers; prepared and ready to become lifelong learners.

At Oldfield Park Infant School children learn within a safe, caring and motivating environment. Staff focus upon providing the highest possible standards of education and care and upon enthusing pupils with a love of learning.  Through creative, broad and balanced experiences, we inspire confidence and celebrate the uniqueness and successes of all. We emphasise a culture of mutual respect, to ensure the happiness and personal growth of each individual. We recognise that all children are unique and that they have different strengths and areas for development and we recognise the impact the pandemic has had on all our learners. Where the pandemic has created gaps in learning or different starting points, we recognise the need to adapt our curriculum to support all children in closing the gaps. By working in partnership with families, we nurture the whole child and provide a firm basis for our pupils to develop into responsible and fulfilled members of society. 

We are proud to have a curriculum which stimulates our children into asking searching questions, shapes their learning and enables them to develop into independent thinkers and learners.  We realise the importance of every minute of every day that they spend with us, and fill it with experiences that seek to challenge the children to ‘think outside the box’ in their creativity and innovation. Developing the holistic child is of key importance and, with this in mind, we offer a broad and balanced curriculum which encompasses academic subjects, sport, music and Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Education.  We are particularly proud of the respect and care that our children show for one another, the environment and the community around us.

Implementation

Children learn through a balance of child-initiated and adult-directed activities. Each half term, we introduce a new topic to provide inspiration for learning, whilst providing the flexibility for children to follow their own interests and ideas. We also provide parents with details of a topic project which the children can complete at home and then share in school. Our timetable is structured so that the children have the opportunity to take part in adult directed activities each week where they learn and apply new skills across the different areas of our curriculum. This means the teacher can systematically check for understanding, identify and respond to misconceptions quickly and provide real-time verbal feedback which results in a strong impact on the acquisition of new learning. We teach daily phonics following the Essential Letters and Sound scheme which is used across the school. The children also take part in a daily mini maths session which has a big emphasis on maths mastery, supporting children to develop their reasoning and fluency skills as well as understanding the composition of number. Our sessions are practical and the children use a range of concrete manipulatives such as Numicon and tens frames. We also teach weekly RE, PSHE, PE and Music lessons. In addition to this, children are provided with plenty of time to engage in ‘exploration’ through our daily ‘Discovery Time’ where they are able to lead their own learning. We also offer a range of additional interventions to support children to keep up rather than catch up. These interventions include additional phonics, developing speech and language or supporting a child’s personal, social and emotional development.

Impact

We strive to ensure that our children’s progress across the EYFS curriculum is good from their varied starting points. We also strive for all children to reach the Early Learning Goals at the end of Reception and to be at least in line with National Expectations. Whilst we do gather some evidence for each area of the EYFS curriculum which can be found in children’s learning journeys or our whole class floor books, most of our assessment is done through the in-depth knowledge the practitioners have of all children. The impact of our curriculum is measured by assessment procedures which allow us to measure outcomes against all schools nationally. Teachers closely monitor the children to ensure they are on track. Those not on track at various points throughout the year are put into supportive interventions if and when needed. Class teachers use observations to make formative assessments which inform future planning and ensure that all children build on their current knowledge and skills at a good pace. The children’s baseline data and end of year data is uploaded onto Insight. Our assessment judgements are moderated both in school and externally with schools from the Palladian Academy Trust and within the local authority. The impact of our curriculum is also measured by how effectively it helps our children develop into well rounded individuals who embody out values and carry with them the knowledge, skills and attitudes which will make them lifelong learners. We hope this then supports our children with their transition to Year One as they will have developed a good foundation and love of learning.