At Latchmere School, the children are offered a rich and varied creative curriculum which encompasses the requirements of the National Curriculum. As a school, we are committed to being at the forefront of educational innovation whilst keeping pupil wellbeing at our heart, thus providing a rich creative curriculum that prepares our pupils to be lifelong independent learners in the 21st Century. Our creative curriculum includes the National Curriculum core subjects of English, Mathematics, Science, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Religious Education and the foundation subjects of Technology, Art, Geography, History, Music and Physical Education (PE). Children are assessed regularly as to their progress in these subjects and these assessments provide accurate, accessible information about what pupils know, understand and are able to do. In addition to the prescribed subjects we offer Latchmere children Personal, Social Health Education with Citizenship (PSHE C), Sex and Relationship Education, Dance and Drama, and French. Our philosophy of preparing our children to be world citizens has led to a highlighting of global education. Through careful planning in the long, medium and short term we make sure there is progression, appropriateness of level, breadth, balance and consistency across the new Latchmere creative curriculum. We are committed to the idea that children learn best in a secure, caring, positive and stimulating environment. Our teachers provide well-ordered surroundings and ensure that expectations of behaviour and work are high and are clearly understood by the children. Latchmere children are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning.
Key Principles underpinning the intent of the Latchmere Curriculum
We prioritise reading and learning vocabulary – the gateway to the whole curriculum experience.
Our overarching aim is to keep children safe and then increase life chances for all pupils by being lifelong learners.
We provide a broad, balanced, ambitious and carefully sequenced curriculum covering all of the National Curriculum objectives. We enhance the experience by providing an excellent range of visits, events, resources and after school clubs.
We promote cultural capital experiences with a focus on the things children might not learn at home or outside of school.
We actively encourage diversity and ethnic role models to reflect our community and help pupils with life in modern Britain.
We strive for academic success whilst prioritising being socially developed and emotionally resilient.
Inclusion is at the core of our curriculum underpinned by the Latchmere Academy Trust Inclusion Charter.
The key drivers of our curriculum can be summarised as:
Key Principles underpinning the implementation of the curriculum at Latchmere.
We have 10 principles of teaching and learning which guide us in our teaching. They are research based and use aspects of Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction.
We utilise the research on memory and, as such, have a systematic approach to embed learning in the long-term memory.
We are committed to training our teaching staff and have invested in CPD on schemas, working memory, long term memory, misconceptions, hinge questions, spaced retrieval, the forgetting curve and cognitive load theory.
We make the learning clear by introducing a credible and authentic learning objective, sharing key vocabulary and prioritising knowledge, skills and reading.
We use adaptive teaching strategies to promote equity.
Misconceptions are deliberately planned for and can be addressed in the moment through assessment for learning strategies.
Key Principles underpinning the impact of our education provision at Latchmere School
We have a robust range of monitoring systems in place: observations both formal and informal, book looks, pupil voice, surveys, subject leader monitoring, pupils progress meetings, visits from the local authority and external validators.
Layers of assessments inform us whether our curriculum and teaching is effective. This might be through low stakes quizzes, reviews at the start of lessons, end of unit tests, moderation within school and data from statutory tests. Targeted intervention and support can be put in place quickly where assessment and monitoring shows that children are not on track.
Our reflective practitioners, subject leaders and senior leadership regularly engage in professional dialogue in order to make adaptions to the curriculum, teaching and learning.