Our Curriculum
At CESTR, we value and celebrate the diversity of all our children. We have developed a curriculum that is knowledge-rich to ensure that pupils achieve a broad and balanced subject-based expertise which enables the children to develop their application of skills taught. It takes into account the whole child by focusing on their social, emotional, mental health as well as the academic success, creativity, cultural development and well-being across the whole school from EYFS to Year 6.
We strongly believe that every child has the right to high quality education irrespective of their individual differences. Therefore, we ensure that all of our children develop a greater understanding of equity and equality for all.
If you would like more information about our curriculum, please contact our Curriculum Lead (Mrs Glynn) using the following email address y.glynn@cestr.co.uk
Inspiring all to ~ Belong ~ Believe ~ Bear Fruit
We believe that we all belong to God and are precious to him. We believe that He loves us and wants us to achieve. We believe that He has plans for each of us, pupils, staff and volunteers. Therefore, we work to support each other in the discovery and development of our varied gifts that we might fulfil the plans that He has for us.
In accordance with this, we are developing our evidence-informed practice through our teaching and learning and subject-based expertise, which allows us to underpin the knowledge and skills taught with evidence-based research.
Evidence informed practice
Through this we have built our curriculum across the whole school from EYFS to Year 6 around four principles of evidence-informed practice:
- retrieval practice,
- explicit instruction,
- cognitive load theory
- questioning and checking for understanding,
Through this approach, we embed a culture of sequential learning where pupils Know MORE, Do MORE, Apply MORE, Remember MORE, in a way that seeks to offer every opportunity for our children to maximise their potential. Incorporated into this, we also maximise opportunities with a Read MORE approach. Therefore, ensuring that all children develop an understanding of cooperative and collaborative learning where all children develop a deeper understanding of overall achievement, improved self-esteem and higher motivation to do their best.
Knowledge rich approach
We strive for children to become knowledge-rich individuals, who develop skills through their learning. The curriculum focuses on evidence-informed practice where children will develop transferrable skills in many different ways using our four principles set out in our curriculum design. We do this by having an emphasis on a whole-school curriculum design, where all subjects mirror the 5-point structure of lessons approach.
We have developed a curriculum that is relevant and meaningful to pupils and enables children to put their knowledge into context. Using the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework and National Curriculum as a basis, age-appropriate progression in knowledge for each subject has been identified. This has been developed to ensure coverage of identified knowledge is secured across the whole school and revisited using our four principles of evidence-informed practice.
To ensure that all of our pupils retain their knowledge we use sequential learning to build a culture of Know MORE, Do MORE, Remember MORE, Apply MORE, where we teach, apply, explore and revisit knowledge using retrieval practice at the start of every lesson and questioning and checking for understanding at the end, whilst ensuring explicit instruction is an integral part of every lesson and takes into account how we manage cognitive load theory with our children. Teachers develop a culture of cooperative and collaborative learning where all pupils work together supporting each other to reach their full potential.
Please click here to see our Whole School Curriculum Policy.