Our motto, ‘Powered by Knowledge. Driven by Ambition’, signifies the importance we place on curriculum design at Rugeley John Taylor School. Our curriculum is underpinned by the core belief that knowledge is powerful; it allows learners to see and interact with the world fully, which drives their ambitions for the future.
Our curriculum is designed to allow learners to be taught subject-specific rich knowledge. This knowledge is ‘sticky’, and as knowledge is learnt, new knowledge sticks to it, which allows learners to explore the richness of the curriculum in more depth. The aim of our curriculum is for learners to know more, do more and remember more at every stage of their learning journey.
As an all-through school, our secondary phase builds on the foundations of the primary curriculum and considers the knowledge and skills that are required to achieve excellence in each subject at A Level and beyond, with Lead Teachers skilfully planning backwards from this point. This ensures that learners in each phase receive a rigorous, coherent and intelligently sequenced curriculum, which builds on what has come before.
Our robust and challenging Key Stage 3 curriculum aligns with the National Curriculum, providing breadth and balance across a range of subjects. Each half term the core knowledge learners will be taught is clearly and concisely set out in our curriculum maps, so that learners, teachers and parents know what is being taught during a scheme of learning. Our curriculum is made up of the knowledge that we believe is important and of value to us and our community, and this knowledge is sequenced and mapped coherently and deliberately.
Why this? Why now?
Our knowledge-based curriculum is built by Lead Teachers who have a clear understanding of the precise knowledge that is required at each stage in the learning journey. Our curriculum is delivered in discrete subjects and our Lead Teachers have thought carefully about the threshold knowledge that learners need in each academic year so we can build up the complexity through learners’ journeys with us. Knowledge is clearly mapped, and regular retrieval practice ensures that this is learnt and remembered overtime. Teachers break concepts down into small, distinct pieces of knowledge to be mastered, ensuring a deeper understanding of the content being studied. Teachers decide on the most effective way to explain content to learners, identifying specifically how to provide appropriate support and challenge, as well as adapting their teaching in response to live feedback. Explicit teacher instruction and use of careful questioning, alongside periods of guided and independent practice ensures the durability and flexibility of this knowledge.
Our curriculum is deliberately sequenced and interleaved to allow learners to commit knowledge to their long-term memory, with key concepts being revisited regularly and built upon with greater amounts of complexity to aid knowledge retention. This sequencing ensures that learners spiral back to key concepts throughout their learning within a subject and that these key concepts get progressively more challenging over time.
How do we assess progress?
Rigorous and careful assessment ensures our learners are remembering the right knowledge and developing the correct skills. We use low stakes retrieval and quizzing in every lesson, and believe it is this focus on small improvements, every day, that is the key to learning.
These methods of continual ‘checking for understanding’ are complemented by twice-yearly summative assessments which we use to keep parents advised of their child’s progress and to carry out question level analyses to ensure our teachers address any gaps in knowledge and reteach and refresh content as necessary.
Constantly checking, re-planning and revisiting concepts ensures that teachers create change in learners’ long-term memory, and it is these long-term memory traces which are ‘sticky’ – allowing learners’ knowledge bases to grow rapidly and learning to become easier. For our learners to engage critically with the world, they must first gain the knowledge they need to understand it. This knowledge empowers critical thinking – the more our learners know, the more able they are to make connections, solve problems, reason and make informed judgements – and this gives ‘power’ to our learners.