Federation Curriculum

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FERN FEDERATION CURRICULUM

 

Here in the Fern Federation, we continuously strive for excellence, and we are working collaboratively as a Federation to transform the way our pupils learn, by designing a curriculum which aims to prepare our pupils to thrive in school and beyond.

At the heart of our curriculum design is the vision for Wales that calls for all pupils to achieve the four purposes of becoming:

• ambitious, capable learners who are ready to learn throughout their lives.

• enterprising, creative contributors who are ready to play a full part in life and work.

• ethical, informed citizens who are ready to be citizens of Wales and the world.

• healthy, confident individuals who are ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a Federation we have worked efficiently and effectively to design a curriculum which we believe is innovative, exciting, purposeful, engaging, authentic and above all relevant to our pupils’ lives in Pontypridd.

 

Over the past two years the Fern Federation staff have undergone extensive training, class-based action enquiries and high-quality professional development to help us support us in formulating our curriculum as well as consulting with pupils, parents, governors, and other schools.

 

This process of designing our curriculum has included:

• Becoming a pioneer school for pedagogy, staff were given time to undertake research enquiries with other schools around Wales on understanding and applying the 12 pedagogical practices in order to better understand and apply what good and excellent teaching looks like.

• Participating in a ‘Curriculum for Wales focus group’ with head teachers and senior leaders from 8 different schools across RCT exploring different curriculum models and disseminating best practice.

• Staff collaborating on action enquiry projects with our School Improvement Group, Cluster of schools across Pontypridd and other school to school working partnerships to further improve our pedagogical practices and policies.

• Staff having the opportunity to visit other schools to identify best practice and disseminating to all staff in order to improve our practices.

• Providing staff with opportunities to access high quality professional development opportunities both internally and externally (CSC, Mike Hughes, Gareth Coombes, Nick Jones etc) which has improved staff’s knowledge and understanding of curriculum design, AOLE’s and Pedagogical principles.

• Staff working with ITE students as part of our lead school status which has afforded the staff with opportunities to engage with relevant and up to date research on Curriculum for Wales and ALN.

• Allowing staff, the opportunities to be seconded to further developing their knowledge and skills to help support and facilitate curriculum knowledge across the Federation.

• Involving pupils in the design process through pupil voice groups, surveys, dialogue and lesson feedback which has fed into our self-evaluation process.

• Providing parents and governors with opportunities to see first-hand what the pupils are learning and experiencing and then provide feedback to inform our self-evaluation and target setting.

 

Our Federation curriculum is broad and balanced and includes learning opportunities within and across all of the Areas of learning and experience:

1. Expressive Arts.

2. Health and well-being.

3. Humanities.

4. Language, Literacy and Communication.

5. Mathematics and Numeracy.

6. Science and Technology.

 

It incorporates the concepts in all of the statements of what matters and aligns with the mandatory requirements of teaching Welsh, English and Religion, Values and Ethics (RVE). 

The mandatory elements of Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) and the cross-curricular skills of literacy, numeracy and digital competence are embedded throughout the curriculum. 

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Ensuring that our children make progress, regardless of a learner’s stage of development or starting point, is at the heart of all our curriculum design. Our principles of progression are:

• Increasing effectiveness: we aim for our pupils to become more independent, curious and self-motivated as a result of the learning experiences we plan.

• Increasing breadth and depth of knowledge: each of our AoLEs approaches planning according to the concepts.

• Refinement and growing sophistication in the use and application of skills: We want our pupils to become increasingly confident and inquisitive experts within the fields of the AoLEs.

• Making connections and transferring learning into new contexts: Pupils are given opportunities to use the learning from one AoLE to enrich and challenge their learning in other areas.

 

Our school improvement planning and review cycle will continue to focus on ensuring that our curriculum will continue to meet the needs of our learners, ensure our pupils make progress and are in line with our overall school vision. We will continue to seek and employ feedback from pupils, staff, parents, Governors, cluster schools and evidence-based research to amend and refine our curriculum design.