A new curriculum for Wales has arrived

From September 2022, the way children and young people learn in schools will change, to prepare them better for a changing world. Schools will create their own curriculum that is tailor made for the children in their care and the communities they serve.

"Bynea New Curriculum Summary"

Designing a curriculum is a journey....

not a destination!

Curriculum design is an ongoing process of continuing improvement.  At Ysgol Y Bynea, we recognise that we have both mandatory and statutory duties. 

The Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Act 2021 puts mandatory duties on schools - things they are legally required to do.  Schools must also have ‘due regard’ to statutory guidance when carrying out their duties.

The School Staff and the Governing Body have jointly adopted our curriculum and assessment arrangements through ratification of policy and practice. It is continually kept under review through the school's self evaluation processes. 

Practitioners, learners, parents, carers and the wider community are consulted with regularly.  Curriculum design is constantly reviewed in light of feedback from these stakeholder. eg  Questionnaires, Pupil Voice Groups, Curriculum Design Events.     

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is at the heart of our school’s planning, policies, practice and ethos. As a rights-respecting school we not only teach about children’s rights but also model rights and respect all relationships.  Our belief in “restorative approaches” ensures that every child is listened to. 

A Purpose Driven Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed to enable every learner to aspire to the four purposes. 

Aims and Objectives

At Ysgol Y Bynea we are proud to be an inclusive school where we work together to challenge, inspire and motivate all children to become successful, confident and caring citizens of our diverse world. We work together to create a happy environment where all members of the school community feel safe, can enjoy, achieve and make a positive contribution to the school and the wider community. We promote a culture where pupils are happy, believe that they can succeed, take responsibility for their learning, set targets for their own achievement and develop as independent learners.

Our aim is that all our children should:

• Enjoy their primary school years and develop high self-esteem regardless of ‘academic’ ability
• Feel safe and secure and keep healthy in class, playgrounds and after school activities
• Enjoy equal opportunities to succeed
• Have a passion for learning and experience success
• Develop lively, enquiring minds and become confident communicators and independent thinkers
• Experience teaching of the highest quality and develop core skills to a high level
• Develop perseverance, resilience, flexibility, independence and a wider range of other learning skills
• Be well mannered, respecting themselves, others and the environment
• Make a positive contribution to the school and the wider community
• Appreciate the beauty, the diversity of the world and their duty to protect it

We aspire to achieve these aims by:

• Putting the personal development and well-being of our pupils first
  Having high and consistent expectations of all pupils, families and staff
• Ensuring excellence in Teaching and learning within a high quality, creative learning environment that encourages high expectations for success for all
• Providing a broad, constantly evolving, innovative, exciting, forward-thinking curriculum that enriches and challenges and takes account of the pupil voice.
• Providing opportunities for children to develop skills of investigation, enquiry, communication and co-operation
• Emphasising pupil activity and independence in learning – more doing less listening
• Being an inclusive school that uses a wide range of teaching and learning strategies, technologies and high quality resources in order to ensure that all learners reach their full potential
• Maximising the time allocated to learning
• Maintaining a school environment that is welcoming, organised, stimulating, tidy, clean and safe
• Creating a happy, industrious atmosphere that models, promotes and celebrates good behaviour
• Working in partnership with parents, acknowledging and supporting their role as the primary educators of their children and providing them with the information to help their children learn well
• Involving the children in community activities to develop their sense of belonging and responsibility
• Offering an enriching programme of extra-curricular activities and visits

Developing everyone’s knowledge and understanding of the issues in their own environment and the wider world. Using systems of recruitment and support that attract high quality staff and governors and producing A School Development Plan based on efficient systems of self-evaluation and effective use of the school budget.

To further support learners, we have developed "child friendly" four purposes to enable pupils to recognise their own success.   

Learning & Experiences

Across all Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs),

the application of numeracy, literacy and digital competency is robustly planned for.  Teachers are expected to plan and deliver learning objectives pitched appropriately to the learners' needs.  Lessons have success criteria (which also include numeracy, literacy and/or digital competency) to ensure the learners are aware of the particular skills they are looking to develop within that lesson. In addition to literacy, numeracy and digital competence, teachers plan for incidental welsh and opportunities to address relationships and sexuality education in line with the new CfW.

The curriculum elements of Religion, Values and Ethics are routinely addressed through Big Questions and are stage appropriate.

 Relationships and Sexuality Education is appropriately and progressively taught using an agreed cluster plan.  This is part of the school's health and well-being curriculum.  

Our curriculum also incorporates, where appropriate, opportunities for learning and consideration of cross-cutting elements. These allow learners to:

• consider local, national and international contexts
• develop understanding of relationships and sexuality education
• recognise, understand and promote human rights and diversity
• identify with careers and work-related experiences

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are purposefully promoted and taught to enable pupils to make links to the real world. These have been mapped out across the school to ensure suitability and progression.  Pupils are encouraged to identify links between their own learning and the SDGs.

Planning & Assessing for Progression

Our planning has been designed to ensure vertical and horizontal progression.  This means we consider both the depth of learning as well as the breadth, whilst ensuring we build upon prior knowledge.  We work closely with our partner schools (Coedcae Cluster Partnership) to develop a "Baseline Map".  This ensures that all learners receive equity of learning and experiences whilst in primary school and allow Coedcae Comprehensive School to plan for learning that will secure further progress. 

Our curriculum supports opportunities and experiences to develop the key concepts, knowledge and skills as described in the 27 statements of what matters. We use the descriptions of learning within each progression step as a starting point for our planning.  This is aligned with the school's expectations for learners, and broken down into a smaller steps of knowledge, skills and understanding (KS&U).  

As a school we have robust assessment arrangements in place. We draw upon a range of information to ensure every pupil is supported appropriately. We place huge value on the importance of "formative" and "in the moment" assessment which enables the staff to facilitate immediate progress.  Parents receive regular information on their child's progress, and are given help to understand their next steps in learning.

Assessment arrangements include:-

• On-entry assessment

• Day to day formative assessment

• Identifying, capturing and reflecting on learner progress over time

• Understanding group progress

• A shared understanding of the principles of progression

• Learner progress meetings

• Opportunities to plan and refine progression and assessment     

  practices–in school and across cluster,

• personalised assessments

• parent/carer involvement

Learning Together

We believe that every member of the school community, including pupils, staff and parents, are learners.  Together we develop as a learning organisation, using information from research, working with other schools, making strong links with local businesses and the using real world contexts to build a culture for improvement.

Mentally Healthy

There is a whole school and cluster approach to well-being enabling pupils to understand their own and others’ emotions.  This is in line with the Health and Well-Being AoLE, and is integrated throughout the school day, and throughout the curriculum itself. 

Every opportunity is used to promote the vision of “Every child can be the best they can be!”

Further Information

We have developed a comprehensive Curriculum for Learning Policy which is updated regularly.  This can be viewed through our  "Curriculum Policies Page".  All policies are ratified by the Governing Body. 

Review and refinement

Our school curriculum will be kept under review in order to respond to the outputs of professional inquiry, the changing needs of learners and social contexts and needs. The reviews will take into account the views of stakeholders and will be signed off by the Governing Body. We will publish a summary of our curriculum and revise the summary if changes to the curriculum are made during the review process.

Headteacher : Mrs T. Morgan 10.08.2022

Chair of Governors: Mr D. Charles 10.08.2022

Review date:- September 2023

Welsh Gov leaflet for parents:-

https://hwb.gov.wales/api/storage/4e66c555-73aa-44ee-93e5-1e612906f1d2/220208-parents-carers.pdf

Welsh Gov leaflet for children:-

https://hwb.gov.wales/api/storage/9db0a2c4-aa34-4498-9187-d92fc6bbf676/220208-children-young-people.pdf