The aim of my Recovery Curriculum plan is built on the 5 Levers, as a systematic, relationships-based approach to reigniting the flame of learning in each child. Many children will return to school disengaged. School may seem irrelevant after a long period of isolation, living with a background of silent fear, always wondering if the day will come when the silence speaks and your life is changed forever. Our quest, our mission as educators, should be to journey with that child through a process of re-engagement, which leads them back to their rightful status as a fully engaged, authentic learner.
Purpose The Recovery Curriculum is built on the 5 Levers, as a systematic, relationships-based approach to reigniting the flame of learning in each child. Many children will return to school disengaged. School may seem irrelevant after a long period of isolation, living with a background of silent fear, always wondering if the day will come when the silence speaks and your life is changed forever. Our quest, our mission as educators, should be to journey with that child through a process of re-engagement, which leads them back to their rightful status as a fully engaged, authentic learner.
Levers of recovery Lever 1: Relationships – we can’t expect our pupils to return joyfully, and many of the relationships that were thriving, may need to be invested in and restored. We need to plan for this to happen, not assume that it will. Reach out to greet them, use the relationships we build to cushion the discomfort of returning.
Lever 2: Community – we must recognise that curriculum will have been based in the community for a long period of time. We need to listen to what has happened in this time, understand the needs of our community and engage them in the transitioning of learning back into school.
Lever 3: Transparent Curriculum – all of our pupils will feel like they have lost time in learning and we must show them how we are addressing these gaps, consulting and co-constructing with our pupils to heal this sense of loss.
Lever 4: Metacognition – in different environments, pupils will have been learning in different ways. It is vital that we make the skills for learning in a school environment explicit to our pupils to re-skill and rebuild their confidence as learners.
Lever 5: Space – to be, to rediscover self, and to find their voice on learning in this issue. It is only natural that we all work at an incredible pace to make sure this group of learners are not disadvantaged against their peers, providing opportunity and exploration alongside the intensity of our expectations.
Evaluate the curriculum content missed or taught remotely Class teachers have looked back on what would have been covered in school while pupils were learning from home. They have prioritised what has been missed or not understood.
Metacognition
A key concept which shapes the ethos of our school is growth mindset. We believe the best thing to do is to teach children to embrace challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, expect excellence, be resilient and overcome barriers, thrive on feedback, be inspired by the success of others as well as supporting and encouraging each other. Rather than simply praising success we praise effort, persistence and positive attitudes to the frequent difficulties in the process of learning. There is strong evidence that improving ‘learning to learn’ skills is a powerful way of improving outcomes for disadvantage pupils. Metacognitive approaches have consistently high levels of impact. This approach has the potential for narrowing the gap by improving the way disadvantaged pupils think about their own learning.
Celebration is one of the most common types of reflection, where a child might want to capture a great piece of learning. Another type of reflection is failure. This is something that needs to be built into the environment of the classroom and modelled by the teacher. Failure is important as it is where great learning can happen and normally has a lot of emotion attached to it. Challenge and ‘doing something different next time’ are important in building resilient learners.
Physical Wellbeing
At our school we are increasing the number of lessons taking place outdoors, along with an increase in active learning; we have recently purchased orienteering equipment, and we have now timetabled weekly University Challenge sessions to take place with a focus on active learning. Active Maths and English sessions will take place weekly for catch up and consolidation lessons.
The Hub
This year, we will open and run a Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 Hub at lunchtime, through pupil voice we have learned that pupils enjoy some quiet time and indoor activities. All pupils will have access to The Hub during lunchtime, which will be managed by our Pupil Premium mentors and Senior leaders.
