Our Approach to Teaching

Our Core Beliefs

At Wayland Academy, our teaching and learning is underpinned by two fundamental beliefs:

As teachers, we are the 'decisive element in the classroom'.

As professionals, every teacher 'needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better'.

Our Approach to Teaching

We believe that high quality teaching is the consequence of three key elements: teachers preparing thoroughly for what they intend pupils to learn, deliberately directing children's attention to the intended learning, and systematically checking that learning has happened.

Prepare

Our teachers clearly identify the knowledge we intend children to learn both in a lesson and over a sequence of lessons, thinking carefully about how this knowledge will be presented. These decisions determine the stories we tell, the models we present, the examples we demonstrate and the questions we ask.

Why this matters:

• Working memory is limited - it can only process 3-4 pieces of information at a time, so new material must be broken down into small steps
• Routines reduce cognitive load - consistent approaches allow pupils to focus their mental effort on learning
• Knowledge builds on knowledge - we understand new things in the context of what we already know

Direct

Our teachers effectively implement practices that maximise pupil attention on new knowledge and minimise distractions in an environment where pupils are held accountable for their active engagement and participation in learning.

Why this matters:

• We remember what we think deeply about - memory is the residue of thought
• Attention is key - if students don't attend to the right information, they are unlikely to learn anything
• Explicit instruction works - direct instruction by subject experts who model and scaffold powerful subject knowledge is the most efficient way of imparting new knowledge

Check

Our teachers effectively implement practices that formatively assess what pupils have learned, utilising adaptive teaching, facilitating rapid and personalised feedback and re-teaching in the moment.

Why this matters:

• Learning is invisible - what we observe in lessons is often just performance, not true learning
• Learning means memory has changed - if long-term memory hasn't changed, effective learning hasn't occurred
• Questions reveal understanding - teachers need to ask lots of questions of lots of pupils and then act on what they discover

Our Curriculum Principles

The curriculum is at the heart of what we do at Wayland Academy. We believe in the power of knowledge and have created a knowledge-rich curriculum with the individual conventions and histories of each subject discipline at its heart. Our curriculum is inclusive, ambitious and rigorous.

1. Knowledge-Rich

Our curriculum is founded on "Powerful Knowledge" - knowledge which empowers pupils with the ability to understand, question and contribute to established bodies of knowledge. It is specialised knowledge that enables pupils to think about and do things that they otherwise could or would not.

Our curriculum carefully selects and sequences knowledge that takes pupils beyond the limits of personal experience, with the aim of achieving social justice in our communities and exposing them to the wonder of the world around them.

2. Subject-Based

Our curriculum privileges subject specificity. Subjects provide the most reliable knowledge available; they delineate the boundaries and rules between disciplines, while inducting 'communities of specialists' into specific histories and traditions.

3. Reading at its Heart

Central to our curriculum is an emphasis on reading. It has been constructed with an understanding of the links between reading performance, knowledge, cultural literacy, vocabulary and writing. Our curriculum is a deliberately sequenced, content rich journey embedded with specific vocabulary, designed to expose students to high quality texts.

Where reading presents a barrier to individual pupils accessing the curriculum, we act quickly to provide expert-led and research-informed literacy interventions.

Inclusion and Support

Where pupils have special educational needs, we do not narrow our curriculum. We adapt our curriculum and teaching approaches to ensure everyone can access the curriculum and achieve success.

Giving all our pupils access to a high-quality education and the best possible opportunities is key to social justice and narrows the achievement gap for our most disadvantaged pupils.

Beyond the Academic

Alongside an academic, knowledge-rich curriculum, we also offer high-quality enrichment in our schools, placing a high value on the arts, sport, and cultural pursuits.

How Our Curriculum Comes to Life

Our curriculum journey moves through three stages:

The Intended Curriculum - What we want our pupils to learn, informed by the 'best that has been thought and said' in each subject.

The Enacted Curriculum - What is taught in school, as experienced by pupils, filtered through the skills and experience of our teachers and evidence-led.

The Learned Curriculum - The knowledge that pupils retain after they have been taught, as they relate new knowledge to their prior experience and learning. We define learning as what students can remmeber over time.