Curriculum
An Introduction to the Gateway Curriculum
Our school curriculum meets the unique needs of our high service population with a heavy focus on ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’, starting and ending each year with a topic focused on transition, developing a sense of community and belonging whilst understanding children’s different roots and heritage. Topics, which span school breaks, allow our military families to further explore their learning ‘back home’ with extended family during holidays, further enhancing their overall learning.Through a two-year cycle of whole school, wide arching topics such as 'We are Conservationists' we offer a wider world to our pupils, allowing siblings and families to experience learning together, sharing their linked understanding. Curriculum enrichment through trips, events and visitors ensures children have memorable experiences to help them remember more over time and the recurrent nature of the curriculum allows children to further build on prior knowledge, securing a deeper, broader understanding. We are proud of the engaging texts selected which supplement our topic areas to generate quality reading and writing outcomes, linked to topics, throughout the school. Our pupils enjoy their lessons and are always eager to tell visitors about the things they have learnt.
Below you will find detailed explanations of how each subject area is taught and the progression expected over time. You will also find the phase stage topic webs and long term plans.
Gateway Primary School – Curriculum Intent
The curriculum at Gateway Primary School is bespoke for our children because it:
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Builds on a sense of belonging and community, developing children’s roots – firstly within a classroom, throughout our school and then within the wider community, helping children form a sense of where they are from. |
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Enhances our children’s understanding of opportunities within and beyond a military lifestyle - linking historical and current issues of interest to our children and their families. |
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Creates links between school and home – families learn together and share their discoveries, creating a love of learning. |
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Embraces a whole school topic approach, learning as a community, celebrating and sharing successes together. |
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Offers rich, hands on experiences through trips and visitors, making school a place they want to be, all day every day. |
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Invests in our children’s unique starting points, culture capital and out of school interests, developing a true sense of each individual child, fundamental to building strong relationships. |
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Develops the emotional skills to thrive in a society with lots of transition, learning to welcome new members, embracing our strengths and differences, as well as compassionately saying goodbye and engaging in change and progress. |
For any further information on the curriculum, please speak to our Curriculum Lead, Mrs Nicki Scovell.
All aspects of our curriculum are accessible to all children, irrespective of their ethnic background, gender, disability, religious or linguistic background, inline with the Equality Act 2010. We strive hard to meet the needs of those pupils with special educational needs, those with disabilities, those who are more able, those with special gifts and talents and the children who are learning English as an additional language, inline with The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Regulations 2014. We provide a ruch, challenging curriculum, which stretches all of our children. Staff are aware of children who have exceptional talents and gifts and monitor or track their progress carefully to ensure their academic potential or talent is continually developed.
Assessment
High-quality teaching is supported and informed by effective assessment. At Gateway Primary School, we view assessment as an integral part of teaching and learning and recognise its close relationship with our curriculum. Our assessment approach is designed to ensure that all pupils, regardless of ability or starting point, have the opportunity to succeed.
Assessment is used purposefully to:
- identify pupils’ strengths, knowledge and understanding;
- identify gaps and misconceptions and inform appropriate next steps;
- monitor pupils’ progress and attainment over time;
- inform lesson planning, teaching and curriculum development;
- support pupils to reflect on their learning, recognise their strengths and understand how they can improve;
- facilitate meaningful conversations between teachers, pupils and parents; and
- identify and respond to the needs of vulnerable groups and individual pupils.
Our assessment practices are inclusive and support a broad understanding of pupil achievement, recognising both academic progress and wider outcomes.
We use three broad forms of assessment:
- Day-to-day formative assessment – used routinely within lessons to identify understanding, address misconceptions and adapt teaching in response to pupils’ needs.
- In-school summative assessment – used at key points to evaluate pupils’ attainment and progress against identified curriculum expectations and end points.
- Nationally standardised summative assessment – including statutory assessments, which provide nationally comparable measures of pupils’ attainment.
Gateway Primary School uses Sonar as its online assessment system. Teachers assess pupils against the objectives taught across all subjects, enabling individual pupil profiles to be developed over time. Assessment information is used to evaluate pupils’ knowledge and understanding against clearly defined end points for each year group and phase.
This information enables teachers to identify strengths and areas for development, plan appropriate next steps and ensure that teaching continues to build progressively on prior learning. Sonar also supports moderation across phases and enables subject leaders to monitor curriculum coverage and progression in knowledge and skills across year groups.
Assessment information is collated five times each year by the Senior Leadership Team. Pupil Progress Meetings are then used to analyse the information carefully, identify what is working well and determine where adaptations or additional support may be required. This analysis includes consideration of vulnerable groups and individual pupils, ensuring that assessment information is used to improve outcomes and inform school improvement priorities.