Curriculum implementation in the classroom:

Knowledge rich booklets:

Most subjects deliver our intended curriculum through knowledge-rich booklets which have been created by our subject experts. The knowledge-rich booklets contain the content teachers are required to teach and students are required to learn. This consistency in resourcing supports teacher workload whilst ensuring all students access the same, high quality curriculum across all classes. 

Ambition sheets and Knowledge Expert sheets:

All students have access to ‘Ambition sheets’ and ‘Knowledge expert sheets’ via their Chromebooks. Ambition sheets provide students with an overview of the learning journey for the topic they are studying alongside an overview of the core substantive knowledge they are required to know and understand for the topic they are studying. 

Knowledge expert sheets provide students with a breakdown of the knowledge they are required to self-quiz on as part of their homework each week. Students are assessed on their knowledge of the content of these sheets each half term during ‘Knowledge expert week’. 

Classroom routines:

To ensure our students access and engage with our ambitious curriculum effectively, we have established consistent expectations around classroom culture, across the academy. Our expert teachers utilise Doug Lemov’s ‘Teach like a Champion’ techniques to establish high expectations in their classrooms. The precise focus on pedagogical techniques coupled with the shared language this framework provides, ensures our student experience consistently high expectations, regardless of the teacher or the lesson. Further information and examples of the ‘Teach like a Champion’ techniques can be found in our ‘Teach like a Belle Vue Champion’ handbook. 

Structured talk:

Structured talk activities are a key feature of our lessons at Co-op Belle Vue. Teachers encourage and promote high quality talk through the use of structured ‘Turn and talk’ or ‘Habits of discussion’ activities. Structured talk activities are used to increase participation from students and to ensure students are developing habits of communicating articulately in standard English, using subject specific terminology. 

Lesson structure:

Our lesson structure provides all teachers with a framework through which they can plan and deliver their lessons. Teachers may use this lesson structure flexibly, there is not an expectation for teachers to rigidly plan every lesson using this structure; however, we do expect aspects of this lesson structure to feature, at appropriate points, within most ‘typical’ lessons taught at Co-op Belle Vue. We recognise that every subject is unique and that subject specific pedagogy must be developed within each discipline to ensure the integrity of the subject is maintained. For this reason, subject leaders have adapted this lesson structure to ensure it suits the unique needs of their disciplines as required.

Lesson Phase		Typical/suggested activities for each phase
Do Now | Activating prior knowledge		Quizzing Defining key terms from prior learning NB activating prior learning is not reserved simply for the start of lessons and in fact where possible and appropriate, elements of prior learning should be incorporated into new learning so that students are able to make links
Knowledge Development | Explicit instruction	I do	Sharing Curriculum Question Clear and concise direct instruction – using an economy of language Use of pre-planned concrete examples and analogies to explain concepts Effective examples and non-examples  Presentation of information must be sure to reduce cognitive load i.e. removing superfluous and distracting material FASE reading Explicitly teach vocabulary (SEEC model) Revisit key material, concepts and key words (to be done multiple times throughout a lesson - not just at this point of a lesson)
Guided Practice | Modelling and students in respectful whole class		Providing exemplars Demonstrations Use of the visualiser Live modelling e.g. creating a model paragraph Deconstructing models with assessment criteria
Guided Practice | Memorisation of the strategy		Targeted questioning to check for understanding Target questioning to ask a student to repeat a process/definition etc. Turn and Talk Actively observing as students discuss their understanding with each other/independent practice
Guided practice | Modelling with students	We do	Turn and talk  Co-constructing an answer on the whiteboard / under the visualiser taking ideas from the students Rehearsal Actively observing and hunting for good answers to CFU and for ‘Show call’
Silent Independent Study	You do	Independent task completion Extended writing Solving problems independently
Progress Reflection		Self-assessment or peer assessment using a success criteria.  Teacher assessment Low stakes mini test  Meta-cognitive questioning linked to Show Call

 

Curriculum implementation beyond the classroom:

 

Ambition Briefings (3x30 minutes per week)

Ambition briefings support our students’ memory retention of core knowledge ensuring that the most important aspects of the curriculum are being returned to regularly and therefore remembered for the long term. Ambition briefings support our students’ in developing retrieval practice skills which support their independent home learning too. 

Community Read & Literacy Intervention (3x25 minutes per week)

We are committed to ensuring that our students develop high levels of literacy at Co-op Belle Vue. Especially since many of our students arrive at Co-op Belle Vue with lower literacy levels than would be expected for their age. For this reason, we ensure that every student has a 30 minute community reading or intervention session* three times per week. The vision for community reading is to ensure students are reading high quality, challenging texts daily whilst hearing fluent reading being modelled to them through the teacher leading the reading sessions. The aims of this are to develop confident readers through hearing fluency being modelled to them daily; to develop a love for reading through experiencing a range of texts across the academic year and to develop their character as we select a diverse range of books which expose students to a variety of perspectives thus developing their cultural capital.

*Where students are not at chronological reading age, they access literacy interventions through the Ruth Miskin Fresh Start programme or Lexia Power-up during this time. 

Literacy and Reading Strategy:

We recognise that our students must be able to read at an age appropriate level to be able to fully access the curriculum. We also recognise the fundamental role literacy plays in underpinning all aspects of the curriculum. To address the challenges our students and community face when it comes to literacy, we have developed a literacy strategy which permeates all aspects of school life. This includes our community reads, community conversations, literacy interventions and in-class literacy and reading support. Request literacy strategy outline for further details.

SEND:

We are relentlessly ambitious for all of our students, including students with SEND; therefore, we do not narrow our curriculum for any students. We do however, recognise that some students will require more support than others to access our ambitious curriculum. This support comes from our ‘Learning coaches’ for students with EHCPs and most importantly, from each classroom teacher through the way they scaffold and adapt the ambitious curriculum to support student learning. Where students struggle to access the curriculum significantly due to low literacy and numeracy levels, additional interventions are in place outside of lesson time to support our students to catch up. Request intervention documents for further details.

Teaching groups:

Our most vulnerable students access learning in smaller class sizes wherever possible. We endeavour to ensure these groups are taught by the most experienced subject experts to ensure learning is effectively scaffolded to meet individual needs. Where we have additional teacher capacity outside of subject specialism, we have team teaching/classroom support from teachers within these classes. 

Seating plans:

The most vulnerable students and students with SEND are seated strategically in every lesson to ensure the teacher is able to actively-observe and provide support frequently and easily throughout every lesson.

Pedagogy:

We recognise that good teaching for students with SEND is good teaching for all. Our teaching and learning practices and wider curriculum implementation strategies  are developed with the SEND and most vulnerable students in mind. We know that students who have additional needs often require the following teaching strategies:

• Regular retrieval of previously learnt content to secure understanding and memory (Do Now)

• Deliberate repetition of core knowledge in lessons to ensure this content becomes automated, thus making more complex learning more accessible (drilling)

• Chunking/scaffolding of knowledge and tasks, so information is taught/learnt in small steps (Take the steps)

• Regular checks for understanding following the delivery of new knowledge (cold-call/pre-call)

• Regular feedback (Active-observation)

 

Students with SEND will benefit from a structured approach to teaching and learning. Our approach to pedagogy provides a very structured approach ensuring high quality teaching takes place for all students, including those with SEND. We have drawn upon the research of the EEF to ensure our teaching and learning practices support students with SEND. 

Memory retention:

Students with SEND can often require additional support to learn and remember the curriculum for the long term. Our focus on memory retention throughout curriculum planning and delivery ensures that all of our students, especially those with SEND are being supported to learn more and remember more.

• Interleaved curriculum with each lesson starting with retrieval practice via the ‘Do Now’

• Knowledge expert sheets and emphasis on learning and remembering for the Knowledge expert quizzes

• Look, cover, say, write, check and Leitner system training to support independent learning

• Checking for understanding strategies consistently employed across all lessons

Digital commitment:

All students at Co-op Belle Vue have their own Chromebook. This forms part of their essential equipment which they are expected to have with them each day. Chromebooks support students in accessing online resources such as Sparx Maths and Educake for science. Students who need to type up their work as part of their normal way of working are supported through the use of Chromebooks too. All students have access to supporting resources such as their Knowledge Expert sheets via their Google Classrooms. 

 

Curriculum Impact

Our students complete regular assessments to ensure our taught curriculum is being learned and remembered for the long term. We recognise that our curriculum is the progression model and therefore the more students are remembering the more effectively they are progressing through the intended curriculum. We know that progress is something which takes place over time – deep learning is complex and multi-faceted. Progress is gradual and does not necessarily happen in handy ‘lesson- sized’ chunks. Our assessments therefore reflect these ideas to ensure we are drawing upon cognitive science to assess knowledge in a spaced and interleaved manner. Our assessments ensure students are provided with the opportunity to be assessed on the granular components of knowledge they are required to know and remember before they are assessed on applying this knowledge. 

Informal assessment in lessons:

Teachers use a range of teaching techniques to assess student understanding at Co-op Belle Vue. Many of these techniques are drawn from the work of Doug Lemov in ‘Teach like a Champion’.

• Do Now retrieval practice questions 

• Cold-call to check for listening and understanding following direct instruction

• Active-observation to gather live data when students are working independently in class 

Knowledge expert quizzes

Each CARE cycle (7 weeks), all students complete a knowledge expert quiz based on the substantive knowledge from the curriculum. Teachers at Co-op Belle Vue share the knowledge that students should know using the knowledge expert sheets. The knowledge expert quizzes are structured as below:

Powerful knowledge assessments: 

Students complete powerful knowledge assessments for each of their subjects to review their understanding of both the substantive and procedural knowledge from their curriculums. Over the course of the academic year, the section A part builds cumulative knowledge as students are taught the curriculum. This allows teachers and students to revisit knowledge that isn’t secure, creating opportunities for repeated and spaced practice. Students respond to teacher’s feedback based on their performance using our endeavour reports which are our version of ‘whole-call feedback’. 

Cumulative diagnostic assessments

Students encounter two cumulative diagnostic assessments which check understanding of the curriculum over time. The diagnostic assessments test a broader range of the curriculum covering two CARE cycles (14 weeks) of substantive and procedural knowledge.

Formal assessments at Co-op Academy Belle Vue are directly linked to the substantive and procedural knowledge that students need to master over time. These assessments generate qualitative data to inform next steps for teachers to respond and help students to close knowledge gaps.