Curriculum Lead: Mrs Wreford

For details of our Early Years provision click here. 

At Meadlands, we are proud of our broad and balanced curriculum, which has the following principles at its heart:

The National Curriculum is the foundation of our curriculum, from which we have built a broad, progressive, relevant offer. It is all of these things because we have worked in collaboration with children, parents, staff and Governors to develop our provision.

We have agreed upon 3 elements that shape our curriculum and these can be seen in teachers’ planning, lesson observations and children’s responses. The choice was deliberate, based on: i) our school ethos and what we deem important, ii) on our ever developing pedagogy to ensure all children make progress and iii) on our baseline data – having identified the social disadvantage gaps, not only do we aim to fill them but turn them into strengths. The three elements are:

• Vocabulary acquisition 
• Memory Skills
• Positive mental health and wellbeing

1. Vocabulary acquisition 

We prioritise early and secure literacy skills. Our curriculum design is centred around rich language development, oracy (expression through speech) and reading, because this is what our pupils need.

2. Memory Skills: Knowing more and remembering more

We place a high value on key concepts in each subject, concepts being a combination of new knowledge and skills.  We have carefully ordered these concepts across a year group to enable links to be made between subjects but also to ensure that the learning is revised and progressive year after year. 

3. Positive mental health and wellbeing 

Positive mental health is key because 'educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all' — Aristotle.  SMSC (Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development) is a 'golden thread' that runs throughout the school. This is evident in PSHE teaching and learning and pastoral care. In addition, all lessons are designed to encourage collaborative problem-solving which develop our school values and  provide challenge and ambition, as well as self-management and resilience.

Our curriculum overviews are attached below and are also available on each class page.