Creating Confidence, Empowering Excellence, Igniting Independence

Curriculum Intent and Implementation Statement  

At Portobello Primary School, children are at the heart of every decision we make. We are attuned to each individual’s needs and strive to ensure that all pupils feel safe, respected, valued, and included. Our curriculum is designed to nurture positive relationships, celebrate diversity, and foster a strong sense of belonging within the Portobello community. We recognise that we are the first step in each child’s journey and carefully plan opportunities that develop the knowledge, skills, and experiences needed to help them become successful, respectful, and responsible members of society in the wider world.

We strongly believe our curriculum will only be successful and our children will only thrive if well-being is prioritised. Therefore, we ensure we prioritise and value well-being through a culture of encouragement, reflection and positive relationships. Our ‘Learning Powers’ which help children to focus on positive behaviours for learning; Cooperate, Be Respectful, Be Resilient, Ask Questions and Stay Focused, help children develop self-belief and the confidence to grow as learners and individuals. There is also a strong emphasis on healthy living and the mental and physical benefits of exercise. We are proud of our achievements in promoting healthy living at Portobello Primary School.

In knowing and understanding our children, we recognise that being consistent and fair in our curriculum offer is about everyone getting what they need and not about everyone getting the same. Therefore, in both planning and delivery, our teaching staff make changes to anticipate barriers and make changes to their instruction to meet the needs of all children in accessing and consolidating new knowledge and skills. This could be adaption of pace, challenge, resources or teacher input. As children develop confidence, competence and resilience, we recognise that gradually removing the scaffolding is as important as putting it into place. All children succeed in all curriculum areas because of our bespoke approach to their learning requirements.

Curriculum subjects are planned to ensure progression of knowledge and skills across the whole school. We have identified a specific key areas of knowledge and skills that our children will remember and be able to use from the teaching and learning and the new rich vocabulary they will be immersed in and will be able to confidently use. Our Curriculum has been carefully designed to ensure coverage and progression. It provides children with memorable experiences, in addition to diverse and rich opportunities from which children can learn and develop a range of transferable life skills. A primary focus of our curriculum is to raise aspirations, foster a sense of personal pride in progress and achievement, and provide a purpose and relevance for learning. We recognise that our children need to grow as individuals and as members of our community, to develop their sense of identity, their self-value and aspirations for their own future and for the future of their community and beyond. To further support this development, children are encouraged to take up the additional challenges we offer such as; representing the school, attending the wide and diverse variety of afterschool clubs we offer, helping with lunchtime routines and standing as a member on our School Council, ECO and Rights Respecting Club. We believe that the personal development of children, spiritually, morally, socially and culturally plays a significant part in their ability to learn and achieve. We provide opportunities for children to develop as independent, confident, successful learners with high aspirations who know how to make a positive contribution, not only to their community, but to the modern British society and the wider world. Our curriculum is designed to tackle prejudice and discrimination and encourages everyone to challenge stereotypes and promote equity.

Assessment is used to elicit understanding every 2-5 minutes. Where appropriate, adaptations are made to the curriculum in response to individual or groups of children. In lessons children are supported in a number of appropriate ways until they no longer require the scaffolded support and are then encouraged to progress their independence, to embed skills and fully develop their own potential and to ensure independent excellence is achieved. The teaching staff at Portobello enable and facilitate accelerated progress, high expectations and standards. We recognise the importance of retrieval and the impact that this has on learning for all our children to be able to remember and do more. Therefore, we ensure that sufficient time for high quality retrieval practice is firmly embedded into the teaching sequence. To strengthen their understanding and consolidate knowledge and skills we ask that retrieval practice takes place not just during the lesson but over time. Children actively participate in high quality rehearsal, summarising, analysing or application activities in order to achieve autonomy, deeper thinking and successful independent application of learning.