St John’s School Recovery Curriculum
Our Intention
In planning our recovery curriculum, we acknowledge that the children will have had different experiences during this time.
We have planned and designed this terms curriculum with the child’s well-being at the centre of our plans.
Our whole school topic being “Home is Where the Heart is” and our focused value of thankfulness.
Professor Barry Carpenter has published his ideas on the situations we have all experienced since March 2020 as a response to the losses, the loss of routine, structure, friendship, opportunity and freedom. These losses can trigger anxiety in any child. Some of you may have experienced this with your children. We have always known that children learn best when they feel happy, safe and secure.
https://www.evidenceforlearning.net/recoverycurriculum/#mentalhealth
The Recovery curriculum approach asks schools to address the losses, to help children back into school life whilst acknowledging the experiences the children have had.
We want children to be happy, feel safe and able to be involved in their learning.
We have decided that a way to achieve this for the children is to acknowledge the importance of helping them lever back into school life using the suggested 5 Levers.
Lever 1: Relationships – we can’t expect all of our learners to return joyfully, and many of the relationships that were thriving, may need to be invested in and restored. We need to plan for this to happen, not assume that it will. Reach out to greet them, use the relationships we build to cushion the discomfort of returning.
Lever 2: Community – we must recognise that curriculum will have been based in the community for a long period of time. We need to listen to what has happened in this time, understand the needs of our community and engage them in the transitioning of learning back into school.
Lever 3: Transparent curriculum – all of our students will feel like they have lost time in learning and we must show them how we are addressing these gaps, consulting and co-constructing with our students to heal this sense of loss.
Lever 4: Metacognition – in different environments, learners will have been learning in different ways. It is vital that we make the skills for learning in a school environment explicit to our learners to reskill and rebuild their confidence as learners.
Lever 5: Space – to be, to rediscover self, and to find their voice on learning in this issue. It is only natural that we all work at an incredible pace to make sure this group of learners are not disadvantaged against their peers, providing opportunity and exploration alongside the intensity of our expectations.
The Implementation
We are using the Leuven scales of well-being and involvement to measure children’s readiness before academic assessments are carried out. When learners are well and involved then we will begin assessment of core subjects beginning with reading often referred to as benchmarking.
For any children requiring further support with their well-being we will plan for regular intervention/ support depending upon their levels of need.
Our Recovery curriculum toolbox shows the tools we will be using regularly for all children and adults to support the development of healthy bodies and minds.
Books are at the core of the curriculum with PSHE and Safeguarding themes interwoven to support the children’s recovery, transition and return to fulltime education. We are involved in a new initiative” The Story project” to support this across the school.
Vocabulary will be a focus for exploration in each subject and topic area.
In early years – reception class
They will follow the EYFS curriculum, which is crucial to developing firm foundations to be built upon throughout our school journey and beyond. It is our intent that the children who enter our EYFS develop physically, verbally, emotionally, creatively, intellectually and spiritually whilst embedding a positive attitude to school and learning in order for each child to achieve their full potential. We set high expectations throughout all areas to allow every child to become lifelong learners.
The Impact
At St John’s C of E Infant School, we will measure the impact of our recovery curriculum in the following ways:
Happy, healthy and keen learners arriving at school each day.
Assessing the impact of these measures regularly and adapting to the needs of the learners as and when necessary.
We will speak with parents swiftly if necessary and also at parent’s evenings of both well-being and academic progress.
Termly pupil progress meetings will also involve discussions on next steps and inform future planning.
· The enjoyment of our learners and evidence of confidence, resilience and good behaviour.
· Evaluating our learners’ readiness for the next stage in their learning journey.