Royston St John Baptist CE Primary School – Curriculum Overviews
Our key aim is that children remember essential knowledge that will help them make sense of the world around them. Learning at Royston St John is defined as ‘a change in long term memory’.
Why Knowledge is essential:
Knowledge is not fixed. Knowledge is not a given. Knowledge is something we pursue, fight for – and construct. Because knowledge is constructed, we can identify best knowledge: the best knowledge in a subject is defined by the subject community. Best knowledge or powerful knowledge is the meaningful content, the facts, claims and narratives, the givens in a discipline, that are broadly agreed by the subject community as being the best knowledge in the discipline. Powerful Knowledge is taught to all of our children and it is our duty to teach it well.
Powerful knowledge is the entitlement of all, regardless of background. Powerful knowledge is knowledge that opens things up to students: opportunities, further knowledge, and transcendence of the every day. Powerful Knowledge is typically abstract or rarefied, and will not be picked up by students from their everyday life. It requires expert teaching. It’s ambitious, empowering, and beautiful. Students who are taught the disciplinary element understand the subject to be evolving, and to be something that they could contribute to, should they pursue it.
We think very carefully about the knowledge we want children to learn over the course of their primary school education, taking the National Curriculum as a starting point and adding in extra knowledge where it makes sense to do so. We work backwards from that, planning a sequence of units that give students the knowledge they really need to access later stuff. We plan our sequencing, and our explanations, and our practice questions meticulously so that very challenging content makes sense to all our students so they can understand it and use it, and we plan things to make sure they remember it and can use it later, like retrieval practice and low stakes quizzing, we aim to continually provide opportunities for our workforce to become more knowledgeable, more intellectual, more academic. This is important because knowledge is the peak of human endeavour and teachers are the treasurers. We keep it safe and pass it on to the next generation.
English – Please see the separate curriculum overview for English including writing genres, class reading texts and reading blankets
Maths – Please see the White Rose Scheme of Learning for the curriculum overview for Maths including long term overview and subject breakdown
If you would like to find out more information about our curriculum offer, please speak to our Curriculum Lead, Mr White.