Curriculum
Curriculum Overview
Mary Bassett was born in Leighton Buzzard in 1853 and spent her life helping other people be the best that they could be. She set up a class for people with disabilities and taught them a trade so that they could be independent and believe in themselves.
At The Mary Bassett Lower School, we want our pupils to emulate the person that Mary Bassett was. We encourage and support our pupils to be the best person that they can be and for them to help others with respect and kindness. We describe this as 'The Mary Bassett Way'.
Our curriculum bases its foundations on 'The Mary Bassett Way’. The curriculum is designed to ensure our children understand themselves and their local community in the younger age groups before progressing to learn about national and international links. To support this, we have organised progression through the subjects with these focusses in mind (see below for more details).
Within our curriculum planning, we work with the local cluster group of schools, particularly considering the progression needs of our pupils moving into local Middle Schools for their upper Key Stage 2 learning. This ensures we adhere to a shared calculation policy and wider curriculum agreement to support our pupils in their transition and continued education.
Each topic that is taught also provides our children with opportunities to have a real life positive impact following ‘The Mary Bassett Way’ starting with friends, family and our school before reaching into the local community and beyond. The broader curriculum experiences we plan for our children aim to support their understanding of themselves and carefully consider their contributions and impact within the community.
Visitors to school, trips (including residentials), lunchtime sports and a regular programme of extra-curricular activities enable our children to listen to the experiences and guidance of others, develop personal independence and understanding of others, while putting their learning into perspective in a setting outside of the classroom. Through each experience, children are supported to take the next step in their life skill progression, as they are with subject learning within the classroom.
Curriculum Subjects (National Curriculum)
Each subject within our wider curriculum has a carefully thought out journey of progression. This progression encompasses the knowledge, skills and key concepts that relate to each subject and unit being studied. Content within the school’s curriculum is taken directly from the national expectations, set out in The National Curriculum (2014). This content is carefully sequenced to ensure that prior knowledge is taught and embedded before moving on. Please see individual subject intents and progression documents at the bottom of this page.
Each unit clearly references where, in the curriculum journey’s previous learning, related content has been taught (this also incorporates learning from other subjects), so that teachers can skilfully revisit and consolidate past learning before moving on. Teachers assess pupil outcomes and understanding for each objective taught, providing a clear picture of pupil progress to support appropriate teaching of the next unit. In addition, teachers and pupils work together to create a memory page of key activities, learning outcomes, vocabulary and moments as a visual to support pupil’s retention of what they learn.
Each subject has a rationale and curriculum route, that clearly lays out the reasoning behind the sequencing of content. Through carefully sequenced lessons, pupils experience and understand the steps in a subject specific process to reach the end point of a unit with quality results. We have chosen to study certain wider curriculum subjects three times a year, this provides more time for each subject which allows for greater depth of learning across each subject. Subjects are taught in a topic for every half term, discrete subjects are linked where possible. This allows for multiple opportunities for the application of skills across the curriculum.
For further information about our school curriculum please contact the School Office and they will arrange for either your child's teacher or subject leader to answer any queries.
Subject Progression
Each subject area has a clear progression of skills and knowledge. Please click on specific subject areas below for further information.