Time to Be...
The Intent of TPA’s Curriculum
We intend our curriculum to support the Trust ambition that we 'inspire learners and change lives'. We aim for children to leave TPA with the skills and knowledge needed for them to build their best possible future, knowing and remembering more as they move through their schooling.
We want to expand their aspirations beyond the limited experiences of our school’s demographic, offering them learning opportunities that expand their horizons.
We hope to inspire and prepare children to be thoughtful and proactive global citizens - for today and for the future.
The Implementation of TPA’s Curriculum
Our unique Time to Be…. curriculum allows children the opportunity to think about how what they learn links to a real life future for themselves. Each subject has an image and a ‘tagline’. Revisiting knowledge from previous year groups builds childrens’ understanding of key concepts allowing them to develop in their roles through the school.
Our Experiences Grid provides ‘out of classroom’ opportunities that again offer wider experiences, linked to ‘being’ in a particular area. These experiences also allow children more opportunity to write from a real event with clear purpose and audience.
Learning over the term builds towards answering a (school wide) key question, and responses are shared in different ways throughout the year. Key Texts, celebrating both writing skill and diversity, are mapped out and used to inspire learning, promote further subject knowledge and develop reading and writing skills.
Key documents (Whole School Progression Map, Year Group Overviews and Timely Markers) ensure that learning is linked to the National Curriculum, allows for progression in what children know and remember, and caters for the needs and abilities of all children.
The Impact of TPA’s Curriculum
We track children’s attainment and progress in each foundation subject through the use of Timely Markers (TM). We have a separate TM for each subject. This allows us to let children know the subjects that they are excelling in, and makes sure that we are building on children’s prior knowledge in these subjects.
Learning Lauchpads and Lesson Launchpads
Children tackle their class Learning Launchpads daily. These are slides that have been prepared to ensure that certain skills and knowledge are revisited in a ‘dripfeed’ basis. These are supported by Time to Top Up posters, that give teachers the opportunity to remind children of a specific skill or address a misconception - adapted to the individual learning needs of the class.
Lesson Launchpads sit slightly differently. These are the sessions when teachers focus on the recall and retrieval of knowledge and skills from last week, last term, last year…. Different strategies are used to engage pupils in this recall - from Noughts and Crosses, to a blank diagram to label or recall from a knowledge organiser.
Experiences Grid
Our curriculum was designed to meet the needs and develop the aspirations of the children of Tangmere. The experiences on our grid give children the opportunity to gain a real sense of the community they belong to and gain some understanding of themselves as citizens of a wider world. They also provide opportunities for recalling and writing about real-life events.
Time to See
To give purpose to the learning that each child does over the term, we celebrate with a Time To See at the end of each term. This is where children show their learning outcomes around the key question for that theme - these can be presented in a wide variety of ways. They are then shared with the rest of the school, with parents and carers and with the wider community.
Further information regarding the specific curriculum for each year group can be requested by contacting your child's class teacher.
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