Teaching and Learning
At Tollgate Primary School we promote a broad and balanced curriculum. We promote consistently high standards where children have no limits to their capabilities. Scientists, authors, historians, artists, geographers, musicians, linguists, mathematicians, dancers, footballers are just some of the professions we strive to cultivate here at Tollgate.
To enable this to happen we have procedures in place to ensure our children are provided with high quality learning experiences that lead to consistently high levels of achievement.
Continued and sustained improvement is dependent upon improving the quality of classroom-focused teaching and learning taking place daily.
Our curriculum equips children with the knowledge to succeed in life.
By adopting a whole school approach to teaching and learning we aim to:
- Provide work of the highest quality across the school;
- Enable all teachers to teach as effectively as possible;
- Enable all children to learn as effectively as possible, without overloading their working memory;
- Give children the skills they require to become successful lifelong learners;
- Provide an inclusive education for all children;
- Learn from each other, through the adoption of a collaborative approach to teaching and learning, where outstanding practice is shared.
We believe that the following key statements define high quality teaching:
- To set high expectations for all pupils;
- To talk regularly with learners about their learning and to listen to them;
- To ensure pupils know the learning objectives of all lessons and to know if they have achieved that objective;
- To be knowledgeable about what we are teaching;
- To reflect on our practice and challenge our own thinking;
- To ensure that we have a clear picture of our pupils’ knowledge, skills and their level of understanding;
- To organise our classroom activities to encourage children to become successful learners through understanding how they learn;
- To deliver interesting, purposeful and exciting lessons with pace and challenge;
- To link lessons to real life situations and problems and with other subjects;
- To use open ended questioning techniques;
- To meet the needs of all learners by using different teaching strategies;
- To use paired learning opportunities;
- To formally and informally assess the attainment of our pupils;
- To use the outside environment as learning opportunities as much as possible;
- To use IT to support and develop learning.
We believe high quality learning is achieved when pupils are:
- Enthusiastic, attentive, responsive and on task;
- Aware of classroom and school rules and abide by them;
- Talking confidently and ask appropriate questions;
- Confident in asking for help and support;
- Aware of their achievements and what they need to do in order to improve;
- Producing good quality work;
- Knowledgeable about their learning;
- Independent learners who are motivated to stay on task;
- Confident in helping others to learn.
Curriculum
The aim of the curriculum at Tollgate Primary School is to provide pupils with a rich, relevant, broad and balanced education, in line with the National Curriculum.
The teaching staff consider what they want the children to learn, why they are teaching it and carefully consider how to teach and assess it. The right context focusing on skills, enquiry, research and knowledge, making use of a variety of approaches including using drama, film, computing, real-life experiences and outdoor learning to name a few, all contribute to providing opportunities to achieve outstanding learning, achievement and significant growth in pupils’ knowledge. The school focuses on promoting excellent attitudes to learning.
The methods and strategies used to teach these skills are left to the discretion of the year group to ensure that learning and teaching remains fresh, focused and inspiring. The National Curriculum provides the statutory content so that the school can ensure progression and coverage across the key stage. Tollgate’s curriculum does not only match the National Curriculum but it goes beyond it.
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