
THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW
Highlighting best practice
2| FULWOOD ST PETERS CE PRIMARY SCHOOL
Office for National Statistics data
and the children’s completion of
their own “Drawing the Future”
programme – an education and
employer international research
project backed by the NAHT and
OECD – provided the starting point
for discussion with the governor’s
standards committee. Some
children lacked aspiration and were
disconnected from the purpose and
real-life value of learning. Others
had limited opportunity and life
experience to develop general
knowledge and independence. We
were then in a position to start
identifying key drivers that would be
central to our curriculumprovision.
Having staff who attended training
on use of evidence-based methods
to inform practice, we wanted
to see what impact our choices
would have on the children’s
development. The Education
Endowment Foundation (EEF) has
completed numerous studies that
linked to our drivers and showed
positive impact on learning. Each
driver was then matched to relevant
research. The drivers were then set
and ready to be rolled out to all
staff. They included real-life learning
experiences, leadership teams,
independence skills and time to
follow subjects in depth.
Acting on our research
We are fortunate to have an over
three acres of grounds. A key area
for improvement was to improve
staff confidence in teaching
outdoors. We started to develop
teachers’ understanding of the value
of this by using EEF resources such
as educating outdoors, forest school
adventure and outdoor adventure
learning. The acquisition of an
additional plot of land from the
local council then provided us with
a designated area for forest school
activities. To trial its use we created
forest school extracurricular sessions.
These were quickly oversubscribed
and are now being implemented into
thecurriculum.
Many of these drivers are typically
seen in good early years teaching, so
much of the development in teaching
methods and attitudes to learning
was for later year groups. Having
successfully introduced coaching
methods through introducing the
children to collaborative learning
Learning in teams is a
key driver
A key area for
improvement
was to
improve staff
confidence in
teaching
outdoors
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»CURRICULUM DRIVERS
Real-life, practical and outdoor learning: Seeing how subject matter
fits into the real world and getting children active with kinaesthetic
learning.
Leading teams: Communication and organisation skills to learn
collaboratively.
Choice: Active rather than passive learning which reflects personal
interests.
Independence: Developing skills to learn and research more
autonomously.
Depth: Where there is scope in the curriculum to pursue subject
matter in more detail, following children’s interests.