overview

The PYP is a framework for us to deliver our curriculum, informed by the National Curriculum, but supplemented with a range of opportunities and knowledge and explored through the transdisciplinary themes of the IB framework. We continue to teach the skills from the subject areas below, but we do this in a way that allows all children to have voice, choice and ownership over what they learn. We aim to provide our children with opportunities to extend their thinking beyond the classroom, in order that they become ‘Happy, Positive Achievers’.      

IB World School …

Our curriculum covers all the requirements of the National Curriculum but is arranged around inquiries into six different Transdisciplinary Themes.

Hartley Primary Academy is an IB World School since December 2021, authorised to deliver the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme.

IB World Schools Logo

The  International Baccalaureate® aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.

Overview of the PYP curriculum

Please view our dedicated Curriculum Map website for more information on the Hartley Primary Academy Curriculum and its various components.

Curriculum Map Website

At Hartley, our aim is to provide a learning curriculum that ensures every pupil, regardless of need or background, acquires the knowledge and skills to successfully transition to the next stage of their education setting as well as to become a well-informed, globally aware young person who understands that learning is a lifelong process. At HPA, our curriculum uses the philosophy of the IB PYP as the framework to underpin a breadth and depth of coverage to ensure it:

  • Provides access for all
  • Promotes a positive, lifelong love of learning
  • Encourages international-mindedness
  • Challenges pupils to solve problems, show creativity and resourcefulness, and participate actively in our 21st century community
  • Supports the development of communication skills to encourage inquiry, understanding and to allow pupil reflection and expression
  • Emphasises, through the learner profile, the development of the whole pupil – physically, intellectually, emotionally and ethically

We are incredibly proud of our curriculum and of how we teach it. Read on to discover more about the implementation of, and how we monitor and measure the impact of, our curriculum.

Teaching & Learning practices at Hartley are constantly evolving to ensure that our curriculum is delivered in the best possible way for our children. We are incredibly proud of our wonderful staff and amazing children and families and how they are all on a journey of continual learning, facilitated by the curriculum at our school.

Through reading, research and staff CDP into working and long term memory, as well as cognitive load and dual coding, we have embedded the practices of low-stakes quizzing (to aid recall), regular ‘flashbacks’ and ‘look-forwards’ (so the children can make links between their prior, current and future learning) and reflection times throughout the school day (so children can, again, recap key knowledge and skills they have learnt and commit this to their longer term memory).

Teaching methods will be varied across the school; we fully celebrate our teachers’ individuality and personalities just like we do with our children’s. However, our teaching and learning policy sets out some key points which we know and celebrate as best practices. So, for example, you may see Knowledge being imparted through lecturing, e.g. Dictogloss, but also constructed through experiences e.g. outdoor learning and practical inquiry e.g. flipped learning on our Chromebooks. Both teacher-centred and student-centred approaches are employed depending on what best suits the learning activity and the children’s needs.

All of the children, regardless of their level of need, will access learning that is challenging and appropriate to their needs. For some children, this may mean their work is more scaffolded than others’ with sentence starters in English, for example, or word banks in geography, while for other children, the use of ICT is used to support their reading and understanding of subject-specific texts. We also know that some children will need more adult-led intervention in order to catch up with missed, or misconceived, learning. We are able to do this in small adult-led groups both in and out of main lesson time. Our teaching ensures that our most able pupils are challenged and stretched within their learning.

In light of recent research and practices on meaningful and effective marking and teacher workload, changes to feedback in writing have been developed and are fully embedded. Feedback will be verbal and ‘in the moment’ (wherever possible), and will focus on small next steps for the children’s learning. There may be short comments in books if it is meaningful and useful for the children and the teacher.

Since 2018, we have been developing a curriculum based on the IB PYP, which places a strong emphasis on inquiry-based learning in which the children are actively involved and take responsibility for their learning. Through lines of inquiry (generated by the children and adults together), they make connections across disciplines and integrated subjects. Our personalised curriculum provides the challenge that encourages pupils to embrace and understand the connections between foundation subjects and the real world, and become critical and reflective thinkers. It also promotes a positive attitude to learning by encouraging pupils to solve problems, show creativity and resourcefulness, and participate actively in their local communities and within the academy.

Our curriculum is planned collaboratively within our phase teams, with collaboration across other Trust primary academies and professionals. Each Key Stage has mapped their appropriate curriculum frameworks (Development Matters and the Primary National Curriculum) looking for vertical and horizontal learning pathways. This allows for the transdisciplinary themes to be planned with rigour, ensuring the depth and breadth is covered whilst promoting pupil agency within the themes of the PYP programme.

Assessment of our curriculum is planned at regular intervals to ensure a depth of understanding in all foundation subjects in addition to reading, writing and maths. Assessment will be in the form of teacher assessment, real time pupil conferencing and feedback, summative tests as well as more frequent, low-stakes quizzing and inquiry work throughout each unit which allow the children to put into practice the knowledge and skills that they have been taught.

Assessment is planned at regular points to ensure a depth of understanding in all foundation subjects in addition to reading, writing and maths. The sequence and design of the curriculum will allow for longer term learning and recall. Through thorough curriculum coverage review and pupils’ skill development, we will ensure the breadth and depth of knowledge is embedded for all pupils to develop knowledge and skills needed to be successful in life. Positive engagement in learning activities and seeing a vibrant global community within the academy will show the depth of impact of our curriculum intent and effective implementation.

INTERNATIONAL MINDedNESS

International-mindedness is central to the IB mission and is a foundational principle to its educational philosophy; it is at the heart of the continuum of international education.

International-mindedness is a view of the world in which people see themselves connected to the global community and assume a sense of responsibility towards its members. It is an awareness of the interrelatedness of all nations and peoples, and is a recognition of the complexity of these. Internationally minded people appreciate and value the diversity of peoples, cultures and societies in the world. They make efforts to learn more about others and to develop empathy and solidarity towards them to achieve mutual understanding and respect (Oxfam 2105; UNESCO 2015).

International Mindedness Venn diagram.

Primary Years Programme (PYP) learners and their learning communities have a range of perspectives, values and traditions. The concept of international-mindedness builds on these diverse perspectives to generate a sense of common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet.

At Hartley we fully embrace international mindedness. We celebrate the diversity of our children and families, engaging all of our children in the rich cultures which we have here at Hartley Primary. We explore different languages in many ways, from asking our own children to teach us words and phrases in their mother tongue to investigating cultures of the world, through literature, songs, cookery, dance, and understanding and appreciating different faiths. This is achieved through a wide range of activities including clubs, assemblies and within our everyday classroom practice.

French is the main language taught at Hartley. This is taught by our class teachers who follow the Language Angels scheme of work. 

We invest time in looking at global issues, helping our children to identify and understand how other cultures live, developing a balanced view of what shapes the lives of different communities. Understanding different perspectives is a key skill we want to develop in our children.

IB Learner Profile

Through our curriculum design and teaching, we hope to provide our children with a range of opportunities to embed the skills and attributes to be successful both in school and in the world around us. By strengthening these core values and attributes, we help to prepare learners at Hartley Primary Academy not only for the next stage of their learning, but also for the future. Our hope is for our children to become responsible members of their local, national and global communities.