Curriculum Intent

The curriculum at James Bateman is rich in knowledge.

James Bateman Middle School provides opportunities for all our pupils through our curriculum and wider educational opportunities. Our intent is to ensure that all pupils make outstanding progress and that our curriculum will remove any barriers that may affect their learning.

Subject-specifically, the curriculum is built around a progression model that ensures pupils incrementally gain deep knowledge and skills that are fundamental to each subject. Purposeful assessment is integral to the curriculum to ensure knowledge is fully embedded and highlights areas for development.

Throughout the curriculum there is a strong emphasis on developing;

• a ‘love of learning’.
• readiness, resilience and respectfulness: the skills required to be a productive member of a diverse 21st century society
• an understanding of ‘British Values’ and the implications for life in modern day Britain.
• pupils spiritual, moral, social and cultural learning.
• independence and enabling pupils to become creative, critical thinkers.
• an understanding of the importance, through the careers programme, of the opportunities available to pupils once they leave school.

At the heart of the school is the focus on broadening pupils’ cultural horizons to ensure they are able to continue to the next stage of their educational journey.

Implementation

The maths curriculum is delivered to students using the Teaching for Mastery approach, fully supported by the NCETM (National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics). It is carefully sequenced with the belief that every child can achieve success. This approach develops behaviours that enable our students to focus, reason and apply their skills in a range of contexts. Teaching is whole class and interactive, where learning is broken into small steps that build on each other, underpinned by formative assessment to ensure that lessons are pitched at the correct level.

All maths classrooms are equipped with a wide range of maths equipment which pupils use regularly as part of the concrete, pictorial, abstract approach. This helps our students to visualise their learning and use a range of different representations and models to help them when faced with problem solving activities.

As a school, we work closely with the North Mids Maths Hub to access the most up-to-date CPD for all staff.

Students are given many opportunities to use these maths skills in a range of real life contexts and across other curriculum areas. Maths is celebrated during Maths Week and National Numeracy day; this year’s focus was using their maths skills to produce a range of artwork.

Impact

Ready, resilient, respectful

Students are given opportunities to develop their collaborative and independent skills alongside being empathetic and recognising the achievement of others. They will experience challenge and success, developing an acceptance that struggle is often a necessary step in the process of learning and that mistakes and misconceptions are therefore an essential part of their learning journey.

Evidence of knowledge/skills

Assessment of students learning in maths is ongoing, from assessing a student’s ability to rapidly recall key facts, such as their times-tables and metric conversions, to being able to apply these to problem solving. End of unit tests are used to help with curriculum planning and progress is measured using termly standardised tests.

Student voice

Students will demonstrate a positive attitude towards their maths learning. They will articulate their understanding during review and retrieval of learning. Pupils will be able to recognise the range of skills that they have acquired to continue their journey in maths.

Click here to view the Spring 2 term Knowledge Organiser