Florences approach to curriculum planning 

1. Vision:

• Through separating leadership of the design, planning and preparation for learning, we will be able to:

• Increase the overall quality of planning and therefore pupil learning,

• Streamline teacher workload and increase efficiency across the school, and

• Enable teachers to narrow their focus on bettering their practice (and therefore increasing their impact) within the classroom

• The curriculum is led by senior leaders and network subject directors who design the curriculum offer and the timetable, thereby setting the intent and implementation of pupils’ daily experience of our school. 

• Through line-management and coaching of curriculum leaders, senior leaders make sure that the experience of teachers and pupils is consistent and coherent across our school.

• Our subject directors and curriculum leaders own the overall curriculum design and planning - they are experts in their subjects who have strategic oversight to ensure our curriculum equips students with the knowledge, skill and understanding they require.

• In consultation with senior leaders and experts from across the Co-op network, our curriculum leaders decide what should be taught, and how and when it should be taught

• As a result, our teachers can spend their time ensuring they are well prepared to teach these lessons through developing their knowledge of the content and skills that pupils need to master as well as their knowledge of how to deliver every lesson in a way that maximises learning for the pupils.

• With the support of their line-manager, our protocols for intellectual preparation allow our teachers to adapt and differentiate model medium-term plans (MTPs) in the context of a coherent and comprehensive long-term plan so that they can be confident in knowing the following before they begin teaching the MTP:

• How the MTP fits within the bigger picture of pupils’ learning in the subject and how to explain this to pupils and to parents 

• What pupils need to know and to be able to show by the end of their learning of the MTP 

• What pupils are likely to already know and be able to show

• Which new knowledge and skills within the MTP are most critical to pupils’ future learning of the subject

• Similarly, coaching and co-planning and our protocols for intellectual preparation will allow teachers to engage with assessment tasks in order to plan each lesson and each activity purposefully to ensure that that key learning is focussed upon through the economic use of language, intentional monitoring and targeted feedback.
   

2. Milestones:

• The work of developing a curriculum has no end point, it is work that requires constant review, iteration and improvement over time.  

• The aim for this academic year is to build a consistency of approach across Florence and bring all subject areas to a baseline of documentation and standards by the end of the year. 

• The aim this year is also to design the processes and protocols for intellectual preparation, co-planning, coaching and weekly curriculum meetings which will maximise the impact of the planned curriculum and allow for it being effectively reviewed, iterated and improved over time. 

 

3. Definitions:

•  What do we mean when we talk about the Florence MacWilliams Curriculum?

• The collation of each of the LTPs for subjects and curriculum areas across the school brought together into a complete curriculum overview of a cohort’s learning journey through their time at the school.

• This complete curriculum overview is built upon the following:

• The long-term planning for each subject

• The personal development (PSHE/pastoral) curriculum planning

• The extra-curricular and enrichment curriculum planning

• To build a consistent and coherent experience of being a teacher at our school, we need a shared vocabulary to use when talking about curriculum planning and about assessment:

Curriculum  Component	Description
Long-term Plan	A summary for each subject outlining which topics pupils are learning in each half-term, with core knowledge and skills listed, links to other topics or units identified and a description of how and when summative assessment will take place. There will be a requirement for differentiated versions as a result of different curriculum hours for different bands, different tiers of entry for different classes and different journeys through the school for different cohorts.
Medium-term Plan	A complete, model MTP includes the following for a topic: An explanation as to how the MTP fits within the bigger picture of pupils’ learning in the subject Model responses for the outcome(s) in the summative assessment of learning which pupils will complete at the end of the MTP Model responses for the outcome(s) in the formative assessments of learning which pupils will complete during the medium-term plan Sufficient, sequenced lesson objectives for a six-week half-term or twelve-week term The key activities within each lesson needed to prepare pupils to succeed in the independent practice or outcome The independent, deliberated practice or outcome of each lesson through which pupils would evidence their mastery of the objective Homework tasks Common misconceptions to be considered within the MTP Lessons assigned for re-teaching as the result of formative assessment Knowledge organiser
Unit	A unit is a specific series of lessons about a topic or one specific part of a broader topic, and it includes intended learning outcomes and a planned assessment to evaluate the mastery of those outcomes.  A medium-term plan may include just one unit or multiple units.

 

Assessment  Component	Description
Exam	End of course (or mock end of course) assessments such as GCSE, BTEC or A-Level exams, which are normally at the end of a key stage.
Summative Assessment	There are two places for summative assessment: End of Year Exams which allows for the evaluation of what pupils are able to know and show as a result of their cumulative learning of the subject or course so far and is a point at which group changes can be considered End of term/half-term assessment which allows for the evaluation of what pupils are able to know and show at the end of a medium-term plan
Diagnostic Assessment	Normally a multiple-choice quiz which assesses pupils' learning of a topic either at the end of a unit or half-termly or termly. Diagnostic assessment is used to support the evaluation of other forms of assessment and should not be used in isolation of further formative or summative assessment.
Formative Assessment	This includes lesson activities or homework tasks that are used to inform subsequent teaching and learning and will differ between subject specialisms. Examples include: End of unit tests Interim assessments  Checkpoints Weekly quizzes Practice questions Exit tickets Plenary activities

4. Methodology:

• Our approach to long and medium-term planning recognises that the development of an effective curriculum for our subjects requires purposeful choices to be made about what to teach (and what not to teach) from the broader domain of the subject. 

• The choices that we make are led by our mission to empower every child to reach their full potential. We believe in cultivating knowledge, fostering articulate communication, and nurturing success. As such we choose to pursue academic rigour, powerful knowledge and a plan for progression which means our pupils are prepared to succeed at university, or a higher level apprenticeship and beyond. 

• When examining the wider domain of our subjects and choosing what to teach from them, we are also guided by Florence's values that underpin our mission:

Values	Considerations
Pride	By incorporating pride as a value in the curriculum, educators aim to create an environment that nurtures students' self-esteem, encourages a positive mindset, and fosters a love for learning.
Ambition	Identifying content that will enable future success Reviewing GCSE and A-Level exam board assessment objectives & past papers Identifying university preparatory content from first-year degree syllabuses
Care	Identifying content relevant to the lives of our children and our community Identifying content which provides the cultural capital our pupils need Recognising the prior attainment and possible misconceptions of our pupils
Excellence	Reviewing the national curriculum frameworks Prioritising content that aligns with areas of strong teacher subject knowledge Reading academic journals, texts and textbooks

• We also recognise that each of the topics which appear on our long-term plans as a focus for a particular term or half-term, are also mini-domains of their own and a similar approach to making choices about what to teach, how to teach it, and what order to teach it in, is required when medium-term planning.  

• We develop medium-term plans for each topic, through the use of know and show charts, which capture everything we want pupils to know and what we want them to be able to show by the end of the half-term or term, and through detailed modelling of exemplary pupil responses. 

• We make sure that each lesson in the medium-term plan has a lesson objective and an opportunity for pupils to demonstrate mastery of that objective through independent practice. We believe children learn more and remember more through repeated recall and practice.

• We believe in data-driven instruction; being able to evaluate mastery of objectives will improve the precision of future lessons.

• We believe in evidence-based practise and evaluating pupil progress on a lesson-by-lesson basis will inform precise teacher development

• When choosing and sequencing our lesson objectives, we start at the end, planning backwards from the summative assessment and making sure pupils are prepared to succeed

• We chunk our know and show chart for the topic into a series of lessons which build towards periodic, interim assessment that inform us about the progress pupils are making towards success in the summative assessment

We most often plan to move from concrete to abstract, from general to specific and from simple application to more complex