Benton Dene Primary School Curriculum and Vision Statement
Benton Dene Primary School Vision Statement
Working together with parents and governors, our dedicated team of staff share high expectations for our children to achieve to the best of their abilities, both within the classroom and beyond.
We create a love of learning by challenging every child with an ambitious curriculum brought to life by inspiring and innovative teaching and delivered with a passion for all children to succeed.
All learners are supported in their journey through school within a happy, stimulating and inclusive environment. Our commitment is to guide our children to help them become confident, successful learners and reach their potential in a diverse world.
Benton Dene Primary School Curriculum
At Benton Dene Primary School we pride ourselves on our outstanding curriculum, which helps all children to succeed in their academic and personal development through quality first teaching.
We deliver a knowledge-engaged curriculum that helps pupils to acquire knowledge, skills and understanding in line with the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum, but also customise our curriculum to capitalise on the experiences and backgrounds of our pupils. We place particular emphasis on the core skills of English and Maths, as we believe this opens up the rest of the curriculum to our pupils. In addition to this, our subject leaders ensure that each subject is valued and forms part of our broad and balanced curriculum. We place emphasis on building teamwork, resilience and dedication.
Our highly skilled and determined staff believe that it is the fundamental right of each child to receive a good education. They plan their differentiated curriculum content to provide full-curriculum coverage and opportunities for all pupils. We place a great deal of importance upon exposing children to a variety of cultural capital experiences and making learning 'real' through regular visits, visitors, artefacts and multi-media stimuli to engage pupils' interest and inspire meaningful learning. Our curriculum content is all underpinned by an unwavering commitment to lifting the aspirations and aims of pupils by embedding fundamental British Values and the development of pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding to enable them to make positive contributions in our rich and varied society.
The purpose of our curriculum is to enable all children to thrive and develop expertise in a range of subjects. We feel strongly that it is our role to support the development of a moral compass within our children. This is exemplified by our core values that extend across the school and are at the heart of everything we do: Valued, Supported, Successful, Challenged.
An increasing number of our pupils enter our school with a significant delay in speech and language and as a result of this, our curriculum has been planned to ensure the key skills of oracy and vocabulary are embedded.
Teaching Groups
At Benton Dene Primary School, we have an adaptive approach to teaching which includes teaching children in groups for some subjects. In Reception and KS1, children are taught Read Write Inc. phonics in smaller groups. Quality teaching, in a smaller group, ensures that staff have a comprehensive understanding of children’s phonic knowledge and blending skills. Group sizes also ensure children receive quality feedback, support and praise. Children are regularly assessed and may change groups; this allows children to revisit particular sounds, have the opportunity for further practise and ensures they are secure in their phonic knowledge.
This adaptive approach is also followed in English and Maths lessons where, again the children may be taught in groups smaller than their usual class size and with a higher staff to pupil ratio. As a school, we provide a third member of the teaching team from Year 2 to Year 6 for English and Maths. We also have a skilled team of teaching assistants who provide further support within groups determined by the needs of the children including our SEND children.
Teachers in each year group plan together to ensure quality first teaching, delivering identical lesson content and ensuring age related outcomes; altering their pedagogy based on the needs of their individual group. This allows staff to consider and plan for common misconceptions and identify areas for pre-teaching. Teachers cater for all needs; provide retrieval practice, challenge, support and feedback for their group. The impact of this approach, reducing cognitive overload and building confidence in pupils allows them to maximize their potential.
We believe that through this approach we achieve excellent progress for our learners. A consistent focus in all teaching, including groups, is high quality, immediate in-lesson feedback, alongside timely and carefully planned interventions. Staff have an in-depth knowledge of the children they teach and their individual needs. Year group teams provide appropriate challenge to all groups to develop mastery in their subjects.
Our groupings are fluid and are regularly reviewed. Groups can merge for lessons, or share their learning with each other. Additionally, class lessons in English and Maths allow all pupils to come together for some learning, share their knowledge and progress together.
Moderation of levels is completed across teams, school and our wider network of schools to verify judgements. Grouping arrangements are reviewed regularly and take into consideration parental feedback, as well as in-lesson judgements.
Ongoing formative assessment is key to ensuring misconceptions are planned for, and addressed when identified. Our approach places emphasis on "no learner being left behind" and in delivering a full curriculum with a Growth Mindset, believing that all learners can succeed. Our pupils value this provision (Pupil voice results show 100% of those who responded were in favour of our grouping arrangements). Staff and pupils alike see smaller groups with a higher teacher: pupil ratio as a strength and benefit of our school.
Pupil voice:
"It helps me learn better because the teacher can spend more time with me".
"The speed of the lesson helps me remember things and improves my knowledge".
"Work is at the correct level, not too hard but not too easy".
“Our groups help us develop the areas that we are not as strong in.”
Curriculum Vision Statements
