Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we lost a lot of time in school with our children. Even though we delivered lessons remotely via Class Dojo or posted printed packs, we know that so many learning opportunities were missed. Whether that be an unplanned debate in class, conversation and socialising with peers, sports day, day to day lessons and more!
As a result, we have created a recovery curriculum to re-integrate all of our children and families back into school with an emphasis on:
- Mental wellbeing
- Physical wellbeing
- Social and communication skills
- Fine motor skills
- Accelerated learning
Here are our plans to help each and ever child ‘catch up’ to achieve age related expectations by the end of the year…
Recovery curriculum intent
We have adapted our curriculum for the children at Laycock Primary after the C-19 pandemic to ensure that children come back to school feeling inspired, enthused, engaged and active. Our temporarily adapted curriculum has been created based on these 5 key areas, in line with our London Borough of Islington recommendations and training:
Relationships
Building children’s confidence back up to being comfortable and confident in school and away from their family. Encouraging relationships and communication as these may have been lost during lock down. Facilitating time and lessons for children to create a relationship with their new teacher and potential class mates as the ‘normal’ handover or meet the teacher was lost during lock down. We will be working on building and strengthening our relationships with our family and community also.
Communication
Language and social skills are at the forefront of every lesson and activity within the classroom. We are encouraging as many opportunities to practise word finding, conversation, imagination, etc. we have embedded a pastoral morning to compliment our soft start where each child gets a personal greeting from the teacher and small group time to ensure engagement and social interaction.
Transparent curriculum
Our recovery curriculum has been shared during our training INSETs at the beginning of the year ensuring all teachers understand our main foci and expectations. We will also share our recovery curriculum plans on our website and in our ‘Meet the Teacher’ meeting via Google Meets in Autumn 1, week 3.
Metacognition
We have looked at thought processes and memory patterns to best inform our recovery curriculum. The idea that children can transfer and adapt their knowledge is difficult and therefore we have trained our teachers on learning, what actually is it? Learning definition: an alteration in long-term memory. If nothing has altered in long-term memory, nothing has been learnt. Therefore repetition, consolidation and consistency is key to accelerated learning.
Space
Giving children the space they need to stay safe, feel comfortable and able to learn. We have split some year groups into 4 classes and used every space available to ensure maximum safety.
We will continue to prepare our children to ask questions, hunt for answers and base decisions on their moral compass. The enquiry based, experiential learning will ignite and develop our children to embody our school values: aspirational, creative, curious, resilient, respectful and friendly. Laycock learners will break barriers, challenge stereotypes, learn from classic and current role models and understand the importance their decision and actions have on life.
