Belong – Relationships – Move On – Achieve

Curriculum Statement

INTENT

Every student who attends Limes Primary has been on a unique educational journey.  We therefore take into account a student’s prior experiences, helping them to become more resilient, develop their interpersonal skills and become creative thinkers. We are committed to providing a positive and stabilising environment to ensure that our students develop the skills and knowledge needed to prepare them for the next stage in their education, whether this be moving to the next key stage, returning to a mainstream school or a specialist setting. Students are with us a varying amount of time: some students will have a very short time with us while others can remain in excess of one year.  Our curriculum is therefore flexible, personalised and designed to enable students to progress to the next stage on their educational journey. Our aim is to provide a curriculum that enables each student to shine, to nurture their individual talents and raise aspirations. Students move on having been part of an alternative provision that has helped them to become confident learners who can contribute to their wider community and be successful.

Curriculum Design: 

• A broad, balanced and ambitious curriculum which will re-engage all students as learners.

• Inspire and motivate students, fostering a curiosity to learn.

• Develop resilience in a safe and nurturing environment.

• Enable all students to make progress from their individual starting points and to have success in learning underpinned by a focus on developing students’ social development, emotional wellbeing and physical and mental health.

• A strong curriculum focus on the facilitating subjects of English and Mathematics.

• Allow students to explore subjects beyond the core curriculum in a thematic approach.

• Support all students to develop the skills, behaviours and attitudes that will enable them to reintegrate to and be successful in the next phase of their education.

• We treat every student as a unique individual and this sometimes requires us to adapt our curriculum to meet their specific needs.

IMPLEMENTATION

In our classrooms we will have students from a range of schools (from across the London Borough of Sutton) who have experienced different curriculums and learning styles before joining us, and who may return or move on to another setting with a different curriculum. We have mixed age classes of children, many of whom are not working at age related expectations. It is therefore crucially important that our curriculum is flexible enough to enable us to meet a wide range of needs. Curriculum development is driven by student preference and prior knowledge, in order to maximise engagement in learning. 

A robust induction process ensures prior information is shared involving previous school settings and parents/carers. All permanently excluded students will be assessed on entry. Students complete baseline assessments in reading, writing and maths, as well as completing a SNAP-B assessment. This allows staff to develop a personalised curriculum that fills any gaps in prior learning, and allows students to move at their own pace, whatever their starting point. Using the National Curriculum as a starting point we have developed a thematic approach enabling students to make links between subjects and their own experiences.

Learning Powers: 

At Limes Primary we think it is imperative that students understand that they are learners and that they have a role to play within their learning. We believe that students should be taught how to learn and that there are certain skills that they can develop which will help them become more effective and successful lifelong learners. We have developed a set of learning powers with the students and these are used to model effective learning behaviours. Students are able to describe and demonstrate the learning powers they are using when discussing their work. The learning powers used in primary link to the whole school approach of Activated Learning and executive functioning skills.

Our learning powers are:

Love of learning

Independence

Mutual Respect

Exploration

Strength of Character

IMPACT

In order for our students to progress across the curriculum they first have to feel safe within the environment and build trusting relationships with staff and peers. At Limes Primary this social and emotional development is often as important as achievement and attainment.

The impact of our curriculum can be seen through a number of measures. We evaluate the impact of our curriculum in the following ways: