Our Carlisle Curriculum

Our ethos of 'love learning, love life' underpins all we do at Carlisle. Our aim is for children to leave us with a desire to learn and keep learning throughout their lives, equipped with the academic and social skills they need to make a difference to the world they live in.

We recognise that the right curriculum and the right teachers can be life changing for all our children and therefore we offer an inclusive curriculum with the aim of overcoming any barriers our pupils have, enabling them to reach their full potential. Teachers have high expectations of all learners and ensure they have access to a full curriculum, adapting teaching to pupils needs.

Our curriculum is designed and carefully sequenced so that children know, understand and can do more in each subject area as they progress through the school. We ensure children have opportunities to build on prior learning and to revisit, apply and practise what they have learnt. Teachers show flexibility when planning, ensuring children have understood key concepts before they move the learning on, and we will us assessment for learning to guide the pace of the session.

We use the curriculum guidance in Development Matters in Reception, as a framework for our Early Years Curriculum, which is then build upon in Key Stage One, towards the endpoints outlined in the National Curriculum.

Curriculum progression maps are in place on our website, outlining the key objectives, the knowledge, skills and vital vocabulary that are introduced in each term for each year group. As much as possible we ensure children have hands-on, meaningful, multi-sensory experiences as part of their learning. Enrichment opportunities are carefully planned and include days or weeks where children can deepen their knowledge and understanding and which spark curiosity for difference times or places.

Our curriculum takes account of our diverse community and aims to support an understanding of the world our children are growing up in, through carefully selected texts and individuals when planning. Our curriculum is reviewed annually to ensure we are considering the unique needs of different cohorts and that it is preparing our children for the rapidly changing world they are growing up in. Staff take every opportunity to develop our pupils' social, moral, culteral and spiritiual understanding.

Our curriculum is broad and balanced and is ambitious for all our pupils and we ensure our curriculum is not narrowed, to focus heavily on English and Maths. As an infant school we recognise the importance of developing skills in the prime areas in Receptions, which enable children to access the specific areas more fully, and of the need for children to leave Key Stage One having made good progress developing their knowledge and skills in both core and foundation subjects,

Our staff and parent community recognise the importance of developing a love of reading and are committed to our aim that every child leaves Carlisle as a reader. High quality phonics teaching is central to our curriculum as we understand the impact that reading has on pupils' future life chances. We understand the increasing complexities of our ever-changing world and strive to prepare our children for this. We are conscious that our curriculum needs to develop resilience, creativity and problem solving in order that children are better equipped to help themselves and others and that they leave us with secure foundations to become global citizens.

The Carlisle Infant School Experience

Teaching and learning at Carlisle Infant School is underpinned by four key principles that are integrated into daily practice to enhance its quality and to have a positive impact on all children, supporting them to learn well and thrive.

These research-based principles enable each individual to flourish; developing learners who can demonstrate our values of: Happiness, Belonging, Curiosity, Courage, Confidence, Ambition and Togetherness

F eedback Impactful feedback includes verbal feedback, low stakes quizzes and questioning, that provides an assessment of learning in the lesson. Teaching then responds and adapts to correct misconceptions through re-teaching, revisiting or redirecting the lesson. O racy “Reading and writing float on a sea of talk.” James Britton, 1976 Teachers promote high quality talk in all lessons. Explicit teaching of vital vocabulary helps to close the word gap and increases children’s overall understanding. R etrieval Recalling and remembering information, skills and key processes from prior learning that supports the transfer of knowledge to our long-term memory. Retrieval practice is interleaved from last lesson, last week, last term, last year and takes place within all lessons. C hallenge Teachers are ambitious for ALL children.  Learners are expected to think hard and develop resilience where learning is difficult. Opportunities for independent practice become more sustained with collaborative and reciprocal learning opportunities to develop deeper thinking.

Click on the subject links to find out about how our curriculum subjects are taught at Carlisle Infant School and see our progression maps which outline our sequences of learning, the vocabulary that is taught and enrichment opportunities offered in different terms.

Carlisle Curriculum Booklets - Overviews for parents 

Please see below the curriculums which help to shape our Carlisle Curriculum: 

EYFS: Development Matters

KS1: Primary National Curriculum