Measurable Educational Value

Our curriculum is based on the statutory EYFS frameworks and the National Curriculum for KS1 & 2 (2014). These frameworks set out the breadth and depth of study and the skills and attributes for learning that our children need to acquire and experience. The emphasis on the new curriculum is that all pupils should secure their knowledge and understanding of the year group they are in. This means that pupils are expected to use and apply their knowledge and skills in a range of independent learning opportunities. Our curriculum development aims are to ensure that our children have opportunities throughout their time at Heatherlands to develop, use and apply their knowledge, skills and understanding. We ask that our teachers encourage our children to make connections across traditional boundaries, maintain an open mind while exploring a range of options, and reflect critically on ideas and outcomes, therefore improving their ability to work collaboratively to solve problems and ensure the best possible outcomes for all.

Measuring impact across the curriculum

To enable us to demonstrate what the children have learned and what they have remembered, we ensure we plan impact tasks on a half termly basis.

In English, this is in the form of a 'site of application'. This is a piece of writing which demonstrates the retention of key learning through a task designed to enable the children to use their knowledge and skills. We complete 2 or 3 of these every half term.

Within our topic work, we also plan impact tasks and activities. Again, these are to show us what the children have learned and what they remember - both in knowledge and skills. These tasks are designed to give the children opportunities to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways eg. posters, letters, an artist study, an assembly, a drama event etc.

Testing at Heatherlands

An additional way we check how much the children have learned and to assess what they remember, is through testing. We test in the core subjects of reading, maths and SPAG to show us what the children can remember and what we need to teach next. Testing takes place termly and results are shared with parents at parents evening. 

Metacognition at Heatherlands

We want the children to know more and remember more.

We have been sending home knowledge organisers, detailing the key knowledge, vocabulary and skills for each topic since 2018. Therefore, the next step for us was to spend time devising a new home learning strategy with staff and parents to enable the children to 'learn how they learn'. We want to enable the children to find strategies and learn useful tips to enable them to retain information and to enable them to overcome difficulties. Therefore, through the home learning strategy we have devised a term by term metacognition task/retrieval task using a variety of tools and techniques. 

The metacognition/retrieval strategies we are focusing on teaching this year are:

Autumn term - mind mapping and presenting

Spring term - bullet pointing and quizzing

Summer term - colour coding and self questioning

Each term, the children will be set tasks and the teachers will model, using a specific metacognition/retrieval strategy how to record information and how to reflect and add to this information - showing the impact of their learning and seeing what they have remembered.

Alongside this, we have a half termly quiz. This quiz is designed to see what the children can remember. They run in conjunction with the topics each half term and are spaced out, to ensure the quiz actually shows retention of learning. Some quizzes will check on the current learning and others may well check on the previous terms learning.