Skills Based Curriculum

[Guest]

We are in the process of redesigning our curriculum and we have decided to base it around the key skills however I am really struggling. I only have a very general outline of each of the key skills and these are not broken down into levels or anything. Has anyone done this abd would be willing to share how they went about it or has anyone got a really good book or anything that could help?

[Posy]

Can't help I'm afraid but as this is something we are talking about at the moment will be very keen to see replies!

 

Posy

[Guest Wolfie]

In Sue R's article about Motivational Planning she refers to a Skills Document and talks about focussing on particular skills over a period of time - have a look at the article and see if that's what you mean? If so, she might be worth a PM??

[Guest]

My school has adopted a key skills based curriculum but only for years 1 - 6. I'm happy to talk to you about how we did it but wonder if you're trying to do them for Reception. I argued that this approach wasn't necessary for Reception as the ELGs are the key skills for that year group. In my school now people work in a more holistic way just like we all do in Reception!

[Guest]

We (as a Senior Management Team) have been discussing and are meeting next week to develop this key skills curriculum, having been in reception for 5 yrs I am moving to Y1 to take the Foundation Stage Ethos up into KS1.

I would love to get some background info on how any other schools have implemented this.

Thanks

 

Sarah

[Guest]

We too are developing a skills based curriculum amd have just come back from a trip to Bexley Heath .There is a school there called Bursted Wood which is doing this already and has v good results.We were impressed although we started this a year ago they are further along than we are.They call it the Creative learning journey and if you visit their website there is quite alot of info about it.This school uses the stepping stones and ELGs as key skills and have developed skills further into year 6.Having returned home last night and reflected on my visit I realised our Foundation stage will not change much because we already plan using ss and elgs so the main changes will come in yrs 1-6 where they will also plan in 6 areas of learning.Literacy and Numeracy still take place in the morning but Creative journey begins in the afternoon

Worth a visit if you get the chance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We (as a Senior Management Team) have been discussing and are meeting next week to develop this key skills curriculum, having been in reception for 5 yrs I am moving to Y1 to take the Foundation Stage Ethos up into KS1.

I would love to get some background info on how any other schools have implemented this.

Thanks

 

Sarah

[Marion]

Have you looked at the Focus Education and Literacy goes MADD stuff too...........we thought Bexley was hugely expensive and a bit prescriptive when we looked at various models but they all help to provide ideas.

[Susan]

Thanks for that insight Crestacat.

[Guest]

We have looked at the Somerset Curriculum which is skills based. Maybe others can explain more about it than i can though

[Guest]

We did ours by looking through the QCA units for each subject and for each year group and taking out the specifics. This then left general statements that can be applied to any theme that the teacher and children are interested in. There is a discussion here that you might find useful.

[Guest]

We are an Infant school who have just redesigned our curriculum because we were trying to fit too much into each year. It is skills based, taught through topics with a balance of Humanities and Arts based themes.

 

What we did was base each topic on the KENT science scheme which we adopted last year. Its really investigative so ideal for infants (but of course as all schemes, we have adapted it as we've gone along)

 

Then we took the topics we really liked teaching in KS1 such as castles. pirates, etc and decided where they would fit in. Eg castles with materials, and made it a humanities lead theme.

 

Then went through ALL the KS1 NC statements and breath of study and added them into the topics where they fitted to ensure all the NC is covered and finally added a question to start the topic off that we wanted answered by the end of the term.

 

We then went through and made sure that there was definate progression and that NO activities were done or text was repeated more than once in KS1. Also that it definately built on the new EYFS and skills based curriculum to be used in our Reception classes.

 

 

We only planned for 5 terms leaving 1 term where individual teachers could pick a theme that really interests them knowing that the NC is completely covered in the other 5 terms.

 

Staff really seem to like it and we will be starting it in Sept 2007 along with the new Primary frameworks.

 

It seems like a massive change, but its not really, cos its built on the science that's already familiar to us and using the topics we enjoy teaching. It gives us more time to teach the important skills and take into account what the children want to learn.

 

Any comments would be gratefully received cos there's always room for improvement.........

Edited June 18, 2007 by Guest

[Guest]

Forgot to add that we're doing the same for FS using the EYFS and Wigan FS skills document. Its on the computer at school so will try to find the link for anyone if they're interested.

Edited June 16, 2007 by Guest

[Magenta]

Would certainly be interested Riverview.

[Guest]

I have been reading this thread with great interest. I am sooooo fed up with QCA and have never taught using them until I came to the school I am at now. My head is really flexible and I think I could probably do what I wanted if I could prove coverage. I was wondering if anyone knows how to access the Somerset Curriculum which has been mentioned in this thread.