Pupil voice plays an important part planning a creative and exciting curriculum

Information about the school

Puncheston CP School is situated on the outskirts of the village of Puncheston, and is maintained by Pembrokeshire local authority. There are 59 pupils between 4 and 11 years old on roll. Welsh is the main medium of the school’s life and work.

Over a three-year-period, around 8% of pupils have been eligible for free school meals. This is significantly lower than the national percentage of 18%. Five per cent (5%) of pupils come from Welsh-speaking homes. The school has identified around 30% of its pupils as having additional learning needs, which is significantly higher than the national percentage of 21%.

Puncheston CP School is a naturally bilingual rural school.  The current building was built in 1953 in a beautiful location with panoramic views of the Preseli mountains.  The school is famous for promoting its pupils’ ‘Welshness’, both culturally and linguistically, whether parents are Welsh-speakers or not.  Puncheston CP School is at the heart of the community, and is a ‘village school’ in the true sense of the word.  It has a relatively wide catchment area, with pupils travelling from surrounding areas.

Context and background to the effective or innovative practice

By working with the Learning Leader from the cluster of local schools, an opportunity was identified to take advantage of the advent of the new curriculum and recent developments in education.  Opportunities were developed for teachers and pupils to think inquisitively when planning exciting and rich activities and learning challenges.

Prior to September 2018, the school planned the curriculum around cross-curricular themes.  They often chose new titles for themes in order to ensure that the ideas of pupils and staff were current and relevant.  Every theme focussed on a topic or topics with a range of potential skills for pupils to master.  By pursuing these themes, the school was able to ensure that it met curricular skills over time.

Description of the nature of the strategy or activity

In September 2018, the new school year and a new term began without a theme.  Staff and pupils came together over a period of a week to discuss ideas.  These sessions focussed on discovering what pupils would like to choose as themes, what was of interest to them, and what kind of things they would like to include in their new curriculum.  Staff spent time sorting ideas into four umbrellas, three of which formed exciting ideas for new themes, one for each term.  One umbrella was chosen as the starting point and, after listing the content, one pupil came up with the idea of “Dewch i ddathlu” (Come and celebrate).

Following this session, another session was held in order for everyone else to have an opportunity to contribute to the new theme.  Pupils thought about tasks and challenges under the six areas of learning of the new curriculum for Wales.  Since then, the school has also extended the opportunity for parents to contribute ideas towards the theme.

Following a visit to Ysgol Glan Usk, staff decided to use the idea of a “FFLACH” curriculum (Ffurfio Llwybr i Addysgu Chwilfrydig a Holistig – Forming a Pathway to Inquisitive and Holistic Teaching).  This meant changing learning methods during the afternoon session in order to introduce key stage 2 pupils to the idea of accepting a focus task from one of the teachers, or undertaking a challenge session independently.

Following the idea-sharing session, teachers now follow the philosophy of the foundation phase, and plan for their classes by including challenges and focus tasks.  These plans are flexible, for example in order to assess progress as the term goes on, and in order to meet the needs and dynamics of classes, or when dealing with important events.  Each term begins by launching the new theme.  By the end of the year, many pupils in key stage 2 are now given an opportunity to plan and teach their own lessons to the remainder of the class or a smaller group.

Focus tasks and challenges are recorded in special ‘Llyfrau FFLACH’ books.  These are A3, hardback books, which spark pupils’ interest.  In the foundation phase, there is one ‘Llyfr FFLACH’ to record the learning pathway of each class.  As pupils move to Year 3, each one receives a ‘Llyfr FFLACH’ as a special book to record their learning journey for the forthcoming academic year.

Plans for each class are noted briefly electronically for all staff, so that they can share information between them.  Staff aim to follow a timetable in order to present linguistic forms and arithmetical concepts during the morning lessons.  Where possible, these linguistic forms and concepts are practised in a focus task or as an additional challenge.

The four purposes of the new curriculum have provided a basis for all planning and developing a revised curriculum for Puncheston CP School.  Teachers ensure that all tasks and challenges have a definite focus on one or more purposes.  Teachers spent time over a year getting to the root of each purpose and, as a school, four characters were created to represent the meaning of the four purposes to the pupils at Puncheston CP School.  Lessons also use the twelve pedagogical principles as a basis to inform teaching and learning, and in order to ensure that lessons are of the best possible standard.

What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?

Across the school, the pupil’s voice is a strong feature as pupils provide ideas confidently in order to inform provision.  The wide range of rich learning experiences, which derive from pupils’ ideas and is based on exciting themes, succeeds in motivating nearly all learners to make good progress in their skills consistently.

When undertaking exciting tasks, pupils feel pride as they plan and present in creative ways.  Deriving from the self-assessment and peer assessment that is an integral part of the process, challenges that are planned extend all pupils’ ability and push them to be more ambitious.  By the end of key stage 2, staff provide opportunities for pupils to develop a range of skills proficiently as they plan and lead teaching and learning tasks among their peers.  This is a powerful way of developing pupils as ambitious, confident and knowledgeable individuals.

Due to the prominent role that pupils have in deciding on the content of their learning activities, there is a diligent atmosphere in all classes, which stimulates learners to be conscientious and to persevere.

How have you shared your good practice?

The school works closely with local schools to share good practice and ideas.  Following a year of experimenting with new ways of working, the school’s journey was shared on ‘Dolen’ in order for practitioners across the consortium to benefit from the experiences.  ‘Llyfrau FFLACH’ were shared with other schools, and the school welcomes practitioners to observe classes or scrutinise pupils’ books.

As a Lead Creative School, the school shares its experiences by working with nearby schools.  The school notes that its ‘community book to commemorate one hundred years since the end of the First World War, which was created by using a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, is available in local libraries for everyone to enjoy an example of the work of our creative, ambitious and knowledgeable learners’.