5.1

1
5.1 The Curriculum

• Our Lady and St. Josephs Primary and Nursery
• North Lanarkshire

2
Core Business in classes

• Good quality learning and teaching throughout the
  school and nursery.
• CPD and PRD up to date training.
• Effective quality assurance procedures in place
  to check there is consistency and good practice
  leading to positive impact for learners.
• Effective planning for what is being taught and
  assessed.
• Evaluative language to describe progress.
• Meaningful tracking which ensures that there is
  continuity and progression for all learners
  across all areas of the curriculum.

3
Core business as the Leader

• Be clear about how you want the curriculum to
  look in your school..the totality of the
  experiences on offer - a joined up approach.
• Monitoring and incidental monitoring.
• Model how you want things to run eg daily class
  drop in 2 key questions..
• Tell me something you learned today in..?
• Why do you think it is important to know that in
  real life?
• HTs need to have credibility as lead learner and
  lead by example. Show staff what you want.

4
Theme 1 The Rationale and Design of the
Curriculum

• Vision and Values
• Development of a three year strategic plan with
  staff and stakeholders.
• Design Principles
• Development of a curriculum where there is
  sufficient opportunities for real depth of
  learning and application of skills. Key
  implications for planning and challenging
  staff..where are you planning for
  personalisation and choice etc?
• An Inclusive Curriculum
• Sufficient flexibility to meet the needs of
  individuals, including those with additional
  support needs. ASN tracking / Additional Support
  Plans / appropriate target setting.

5
5.1

• Promote Pupil Entitlements
• Life and ethos of the School and Nursery.
• Curriculum areas and subjects.
• IDL.
• Planned opportunities for wider and personal
  achievement.
• Develop the Four Capacities
• Curriculum for Excellence awards.
• Tea with Mrs. T!
• PLP/ Learning Log - target setting and review.

6
Does the curriculum leave scope for well
considered innovations?

• Focus Fridays
• Philosophy for Children
• Friday Focus Groups Enterprise, Fairtrade, Eco
  and Website
• Thinking Circles
• Intergenerational Learning
• Re structured Golden time
• Forest Kindergarten
• Nursery Home-link Activity Bags Early Years
  Collaborative

7
Theme 2 The Development of the Curriculum

• Refreshing our Curriculum to incorporate change
  and innovation.
• Three year strategic plan created with all staff
  and stakeholders. SWOT and PESTLE Analysis
• Improvement Priorities identified in School
  Improvement Plan tied in to 3 year plan.
• Ongoing self evaluation to inform next steps and
  areas for focused attention.
• Opportunities for Distributed Leadership, working
  parties and collegiate working.
• Being pro-active to access opportunities for
  enhancing the curriculum for children.

8
Numeracy Focus

• Feedback from Stakeholders
• Analysis of GL Assessment results and other
  assessment data
• Aim to be Es and Os led less textbook
• Ensure children have opportunities to use skills
  in unfamiliar situations contextualised
  assessments.
• Has there been retention of learning? Can they
  use what they have learned to problem solve? Has
  there been real depth to the learning that has
  been going on over the block of work?

9
Theme 3 Programmes and Courses

• All areas have a programme of study in place.
• Some areas have not been addressed yet through
  school improvement but a planned, progressive
  programme is in place to plug gaps until the area
  can be looked at in depth.
• Three year rolling programme of Science and IDL
  topics to ensure continuity and progression.
• Skills development at the core of the programmes
  e.g a local authority produced art pack
• Clear guidance on the basics Timetabled lessons
  weekly for discrete subjects eg Art / Science.

10
Theme 4 - Transitions

• Pastoral Transitions
• Induction days for P1 and for new nursery pupils.
• Buddy programmes / P1 Chums
• Induction days P7 S1
• Half day visit for P6 to high school
• Pupil and group information passed on from
  teacher to teacher.
• Handover information at the end of the year.

11
Curricular Transitions

• How are we ensuring that there is continuation of
  learning at Early Level and taking cognisance of
  the work covered already?
• PT / P1 teacher covers the Nursery teacher
  McCrone session. Alternating between morning and
  afternoon sessions to get to know all the
  children and the work being covered.
• How are we checking security at a level before
  moving to First? Second? Variety of evidence
  (Make / Say / Do / Write) over time. Pupil
  tracking and Pupil progress meetings as well as
  weekly planning evaluations.

12
What next for OLSJ?

• Continue to review and develop curricular areas
  on a rolling programme. IDL / Art / RE next!
• Include Numeracy as a Year three priority in the
  school improvement plan. Focus now on problem
  solving and planned opportunities for numeracy
  across the curriculum.
• Continue and expand the Friday Focus Work.
• Further develop links with the community to
  enhance opportunities we offer the children.