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Curriculum Design Process Ysgol Maes-y-Llan

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Our School's Unique Factors

Who we are

Ysgol Maes y Llan is a primary school in the heart of Ruabon in the county of Wrexham. We provide education for approximately 160 learners from three to eleven years old; we offer nursery provision during the morning sessions.

We run a popular breakfast club for children in Reception up to Year 6, which opens from 7:50 am. The neighbouring playgroup, Miniworld Day Nursery, offer bespoke and unique after school care in our Forest School.

The three-year average for pupils:

- who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) is approximately 25%, which is above the LA and Welsh average

- identified as having additional learning needs (ALN) is approximately 11%, which is below the LA and Welsh average

- who speak English as an additional language (EAL) is approximately 8%, which is slightly above the LA average and above the Welsh average

- whose ethnic background was recorded as anything other than 'White-British' (BAME) is approximately 14%, which is above the LA and Welsh average

At Ysgol Maes y Llan, we teach predominantly through the medium of English but with use of the Welsh language. The home language of most pupils is English.

At Ysgol Maes y Llan, Welsh language, culture and heritage is at the heart of what we do. We have an active and enthusiastic Criw Cymraeg who have led our school to achieve the Cymraeg Campus Siartr Iaith Silver Award.

In addition, during their time in KS2, learners have opportunities to attend residential trips to Cardiff and Glan Llyn.

Our local and wider environmental and historical factors

Within our urban village community, bordering the town of Wrexham, we have several facilities and local features available to us, which make us unique.

Our School's Personality

Celebrating Success

Involvement with the Community

Epic Class Trips

Whole School Events

Forest School

Glan Llyn

Healthy School

Imagineering

Displaying our work in the Community

Outdoor Learning

Problem Solving

Real Life Authentic Contexts

Cyngor Ysgol

School Council

Cymraeg Campus

Criw Cymraeg

Cyngor Eco

Eco Council

Sporting Events

Taking Risks

Vision

Ysgol Maes-y-Llan is a caring and nurturing school.

Well-being, our culture and community are imperative in all we do. We endeavour to nurture positive relationships based on respect and kindness for ourselves and others, as well as the local and wider environment.

We have high expectations for all and are committed to ensure that every child meets their full potential through an inspiring, relevant and creative curriculum.

We empower children to lead their own learning and become independent thinkers by being ambitious, confident and reflective.

Together we create a happy, safe and inclusive school where everyone aspires to be their best.

Mission Statement

At Ysgol Maes y Llan, all our children and young people will be supported to develop into:

  • Ambitious, capable learners who are ready to learn throughout their lives. We strive to create a safe, secure and stimulating environment that promotes and nurtures the development of growing minds; where pupils feel happy, empowered and inspired to learn.
  • Enterprising, creative contributors willing to play a full part in life and work and who will be encouraged to try their best, attend regularly and achieve their full potential academically, creatively, personally, socially and emotionally. High quality and engaging learning experiences will be provided for all children, and we will celebrate effort, successes, innovation and aspiration.
  • Ethical, informed citizens who are ready to be citizens of Wales and the world. We aim to foster a strong sense of self, family, community and belonging, where children develop kindness and a mutual respect for themselves, each other and the local and wider environment.
  • Healthy, confident individuals, willing to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society. We aim to ensure the best possible education for the children in our care, celebrating success and nurturing efforts so that each member of our Maes Y Llan family has a voice, can develop as an individual and flourish as a 21st century learner.
These are our ambitious, capable, enterprising, creative, healthy, confident, ethically-informed learners, who designed our Four Purposes superheroes as part of a whole school competition. They then worked with our ICT design team to build the final designs. Da iawn Carla, Cody, Riley and Jake!

Values

We strive to achieve our vision through the promotion and provision of:

What Teaching and Learning Looks Like at Our School

The Curriculum for Wales gives us the freedom to design our own content for learning based on:

• 4 Core Purposes for Learning

• 6 Areas of Learning and Experience and their What Matters Statements

• Cross Curricular Skills Development

• 5 Cross-Cutting Themes

Inspirational and authentic learning experiences are essential if we are to realise the 4 purposes, our vision as a school and the requirements of the Curriculum Framework. Ensuring a high-quality learning environment is vitally important to us at Ysgol Maes -Y-Llan for both learners and practitioners. Consistency of ethos in every class across the school is of paramount importance for us to ensure a safe and inspiring learning environment, so that our learners and staff can take risks, make mistakes confidently, and work in an atmosphere of mutual respect and appreciation of everyone's efforts.

We constantly reflect upon, share and develop our teaching practices, based on our understanding of the 12 pedagogical principles set out in the Curriculum Framework and the practices we find to be successful in our school.

Designing our Curriculum

Our curriculum is driven by high quality learning experiences, empowering our learners to develop the skills and knowledge they need to learn successfully and achieve the Four Purposes.

We develop the skills and concepts contained within the 27 Statements of What Matters across the 6 AOLEs over our learners' time at school. When we revisit, we extend and deepen these skills concepts to ensure progression in learning, appropriate to our learners’ developmental stages.

We work together to provide a continuum of learning between phases to ensure appropriate continuity of learning and teaching.

We ensure that the curriculum draws on the voice of our learners and responds to their needs, experiences and interests to encourage engagement and investment in their own learning.

Our teachers plan authentic learning experiences that challenge and motivate the individual needs and contexts of all our learners.

Our teachers plan learning experiences across the AOLEs that incorporate the cross-curricular and integral skills enabling learners to develop, practice and apply the skills fully. We ensure that the level of challenge is appropriate.

Planning

Our learning experiences are designed around a big question, statement or a specific theme. Pupil voice and that of their families and the community are important to us, as is being flexible, in order to follow different learning opportunities as they arise to make learning experiences relevant, interesting and timely.

A combination of approaches to curriculum design is used according to learner age and learning context. Elements of planning for direct teaching, both disciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches will be used to learn and practise specific skills.

Interdisciplinary and integrated approaches are used to practice skills and apply them in different cross curricular contexts.

Progression and assessment

In our curriculum, new learning is constructed on prior knowledge. Learning is holistic and the curriculum enables the children to build on firm foundations. We ensure that children develop and improve their knowledge and skills in all Areas of Learning and Experiences by following the progression steps in Curriculum for Wales descriptions of learning alongside the Literacy and Numeracy Framework (LNF) and Digital Competency Framework (DCF). We use the Descriptions of Learning for each What Matters statement to assess and plan for learners’ progress. In some Areas of Learning we use carefully selected schemes to support effective teaching and ensure a progressive approach. For example, Read Write Inc. (early phonics, reading and spelling).

Assessment of and for learning is carried out constantly and consistently to accelerate progress. We track learner progress over time and share this information with learners, parents and carers. When required and identified, the school creates bespoke adjustments to provision using a rich and broad package of targeted interventions delivered by various staff. The Curriculum for Wales gives us the opportunity to ensure that learners’ progress is the primary purpose of Assessment and not an accountability exercise.

At Ysgol Maes y Llan we develop a holistic picture of each individual’s development, including their well-being, readiness and desire to learn, alongside the development of their skills, knowledge and understanding.

We believe in a ‘mastery’ approach to teaching and learning and celebrate depth of understanding built upon secure fundamental foundations. Teachers are empowered to spend enough time with learners in order for them to master content, apply the skills in a range of situations, reasoning and justifying.

Our curriculum is organised into cross-curricular and cross-cutting topics which make strong connections within and across Areas of Learning and Experience and allow children to immerse into contexts for their learning which are relevant to them, our locality and current events. Our topics are often collaboratively planned, sometimes whole school, making learning engaging and provide authentic purposes to learning.

Topics start with a ‘hook’, where we aim to ignite the children’s passion and enthusiasm for the topic they will be learning within. These come in the form of a Big Question, statement or experience. Early in the topic, a class discussion allows teachers to gather pupil voice in order for children to take ownership of the direction of their own learning.