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How we designed a primary school curriculum

How we designed a primary school curriculum

We've taken the leg-work out of long-term planning for KS1 and KS2. With Curriculum Packs, we've done all of the curriculum development, design and mapping so you and your teacher colleagues can spend less time planning and more time facilitating learning.

 

What are PlanBee Curriculum Packs?

 

PlanBee Curriculum Packs are ready-to-teach long-term planning packs for a range of primary subjects. They include detailed lesson planning and resources for an entire year's teaching and learning, for individual year groups, key stages or even for the whole school.

 

How we designed and developed our long term planning packs

 

To ensure that our Curriculum Packs are something that all primary schools and teachers can benefit from, here's the steps we took when building the curriculum:

 

  1. Curriculum design – how we ensured there would be comprehensive coverage of all National Curriculum objectives.
  2. Curriculum mapping – how we distributed the learning objectives across the primary year groups and key stages.
  3. Curriculum development – how we devised engaging and enjoyable learning activities to meet learning objectives – and ensured teachers would have all the resources they need.

 

Curriculum design: how we ensured there would be comprehensive coverage of all National Curriculum objectives.

 

The new (2014) primary National Curriculum for England was our primary source when designing Curriculum Packs. We have ensured that all our long term planning collections (such as this Complete Science Years 1-6 Curriculum Pack) ensure comprehensive coverage of all KS2 and KS1 curriculum objectives. This means they're absolutely ideal for state-maintained schools in England.

 

 PlanBee Science Curriculum Pack 5 Star Review 

But we wanted to ensure Curriculum Packs were suitable for teaching in all British schools. With that in mind, we've ensured that every long term planning pack includes broad, varied learning that goes beyond the National Curriculum, and a choice of activities with every single lesson.

 

Not only are PlanBee Curriculum Packs great for state schools, but because of the varied learning included, they're great for independent schools, academies and other non-maintained schools, as well as Welsh, Scottish and international schools, too.
Our Education for Social Responsibility Curriculum is a great example of just how far we've gone beyond the scope of the National Curriculum in our desire to provide valuable learning experiences for children – education which will truly help them navigate life in the future.

 

What is Education for Social Responsibility? Learn more about ESR and how it can help your future global citizens.

 

Curriculum mapping: how we created long term planning which works for every year group, all year round.

 

Before we started creating units of work for our primary curriculum, we first wanted to ensure that the learning objectives we wanted to teach were covered in a sensible order. In other words, wanted to plan for progression.
Let's take a look at just one small section of the curriculum map for our massive Whole School Maths Curriculum Pack:

 

Year 1 Maths Curriculum Objectives PlanBee

 

Just as you (and your teacher colleagues) would, we've planned for progression in a logical fashion. In Year 1, we've planned for teaching and learning about counting from 1 to 20 in the autumn term, at the start of the school year. Counting to and across 100 is not covered until the summer term, by which point Year 1 children should be much more confident with counting and place value.

 

Learn more about more about the PlanBee Primary Maths Curriculum, with year-round planning and resources for every KS1 and KS2 year group.

 

We've applied the same principals when mapping out curriculums for every other subject. Objectives are addressed in a sensible order, allowing children to revisit ideas and build upon their growing skills in a way that makes sense.

 

Clearly laying out a plan for progression within our curriculums was something we wanted to do to make life easier for teachers. We know from our own school experiences just how long it can take to devise a curriculum with excellent knowledge and skills progression; that's why we've done it for you.
Long Term Overviews which include a breakdown of National Curriculum objective coverage, and progression mapping like the one above, are available to download for every single PlanBee Curriculum Pack. They're free—so you can see what you're getting before you buy—and can be instantly downloaded from any curriculum page (such as this Geography Curriculum Pack page). Just click 'Free Additional Resources' below the descriptions.

 

Curriculum Development: how we devised engaging and enjoyable learning activities, and ensured teachers would have all the time-saving resources they need.

 

Here at PlanBee, our approach to planning learning activities has always been the same:

 

  • Provide differentiated activities and resources for those that wish to differentiate
  • Provide extensive printable resources (e.g. worksheets, activity cards) so teachers can 'grab and go' – great for last-minute cover/supply/those occasions when you just don't have time to plan everything yourself!
  • Offer a choice of activities – at least two in every single lesson, in fact! Our 'Fancy something different…?' activities are often more practical and creative than the differentiated main activity.

 

When we began the process of curriculum design for our Curriculum Packs, the same approach enabled us to ensure that children would experience varied, challenging and enjoyable activities throughout their learning journeys – and that teachers could pick and choose from activities depending on what they thought their pupils would benefit most from. Every single lesson in our Curriculum Packs includes a choice of activities.

 

Want to see examples of what the lesson plans and activity choices actually look like? We've got free downloadable sample packs of lesson planning and resources for every subject, such as this Art Years 1-6 Sample Pack.

 

PlanBee Curriculum Packs available now:

 

We've created Curriculum Packs with mapped-out planning for entire year groups, key stages or the whole school. Now you can get lesson planning for an entire term—or entire year—at permanently discounted prices, too:

 

 

Don't forget: our entire team of resource creators is made up of experienced former primary teachers. If you have any questions about PlanBee curriculums, we're ready to help and happy to chat about how they are designed, and how they can help you and your school. Drop us a line, any time: info@planbee.com

 

Happy teaching!

 


 

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