Known well. Taught well. Included well.

At Waterloo Primary School, our curriculum is everything we deliberately teach children—from the knowledge and skills contained within individual subjects to the language, character, habits and experiences they need to thrive.

Our curriculum is designed around a simple commitment: every child will be known well, taught well and included well.

We want every child to achieve academically. We also want every child to develop the communication, confidence, independence, relationships and strength of character needed to lead a safe, healthy and fulfilling life. Academic success and personal development are therefore not separate parts of our curriculum: each makes the other possible.

Our curriculum encompasses mainstream classes, Nursery and our specialist provisions. Children may follow different pathways, require different adaptations or work towards different developmental outcomes, but they belong to one Waterloo community and share the same entitlement to ambition, belonging and opportunity.

Understanding our children

Our curriculum begins with a clear understanding of our school and community.

Many children arrive at Waterloo with knowledge, language and experiences that give them a strong foundation for learning. Others begin from lower starting points or face additional barriers which may include:

• speech, language and communication needs

• special educational needs or disabilities;

• limited vocabulary or experience of spoken English;

• disadvantage and financial hardship;

• reduced access to books, travel and wider cultural experiences;

• interrupted learning, mobility or poor attendance;

• social, emotional or mental health needs;

• difficulties with attention, regulation or independence;

• adverse childhood experiences or complex family circumstances.

We do not use these barriers to lower expectations. We use our knowledge of them to make better curriculum decisions.

Equality does not mean giving every child exactly the same provision. It means understanding what each child needs in order to participate, succeed and belong. Our curriculum therefore combines a strong common entitlement with carefully planned teaching, adaptation, intervention and specialist support.

Our curriculum intent

Through our curriculum, we intend that every child will:

1. Develop secure foundations in communication, language, reading, writing and mathematics.

2. Acquire a broad and connected body of knowledge about the world, remembering more and making meaningful connections between subjects and experiences.

3. Become an effective communicator who can listen, speak, explain, question, debate and express needs, ideas and emotions.

4. Develop personally as well as academically, becoming increasingly confident, independent, resilient and responsible.

5. Learn how to build healthy relationships, understand difference, resolve difficulties and contribute positively to a community.

6. Know how to keep themselves and others safe, including in relationships, in the community and online.

7. Experience success, challenge and belonging, regardless of disadvantage, disability, need or starting point.

8. Discover interests and talents through sport, music, the arts, leadership, outdoor learning, visits, clubs and residential experiences.

9. Understand the community and wider world in which they live, while encountering people, cultures, places and possibilities beyond their immediate experience.

10. Leave Waterloo ready for the next stage of education and later life, with the knowledge, character and ambition to make positive choices.

This fulfils our responsibility to provide a broad and balanced education that promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development and prepares them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. It includes the National Curriculum alongside Relationships and Health Education, religious education and Waterloo’s wider curriculum. National curriculum in England and RSHE statutory guidance from September 2026.

Our curriculum principles

Every curriculum decision at Waterloo is guided by the following principles.

Ambition for every child

We begin with the belief that every child can learn and make meaningful progress.

SEND, disadvantage, low prior attainment or difficulty with language must never lead to an unnecessarily narrow curriculum or reduced ambition. Adults adapt the route into learning without losing sight of the intended destination.

For some children, particularly those with complex needs, that destination may be represented by personalised developmental outcomes rather than age-related expectations. These outcomes remain purposeful, challenging and rooted in preparation for the next stage of life.

Strong foundations first

Children cannot access the full richness of education without secure foundations. Communication and language, early reading, transcription, number, attention, regulation and learning behaviours are therefore deliberately taught and regularly revisited.

Where foundations are insecure, we respond quickly. Intervention is precise and additional to—rather than a permanent replacement for—the child’s wider curriculum entitlement.

Language unlocks learning

Many children at Waterloo begin with low levels of language or have identified communication needs. Language development is therefore everyone’s responsibility and is taught through every subject.

Adults explicitly teach vocabulary, model accurate spoken language, develop listening and attention, provide structured opportunities for pupil talk and expect children to explain their thinking. Visuals, signing, communication systems and assistive technology are used where they enable greater participation and independence.

Children are taught not only to answer questions but also to ask them, discuss ideas, disagree respectfully, perform, present and advocate for themselves.

Knowledge builds opportunity

Children learn more successfully when new knowledge connects to what they already understand. Our curriculum therefore identifies the important knowledge, vocabulary and concepts children should learn in each subject and sequences these carefully from the early years onwards.

Teachers revisit important learning, check what children have understood and provide regular opportunities to retrieve and apply knowledge. We avoid activity for activity’s sake: every lesson, visit and experience must make a deliberate contribution to what children are learning or becoming.

Reading is a right

Reading is fundamental to success across the curriculum and to children’s future lives.

We teach early reading through a systematic synthetic phonics programme, with frequent assessment and prompt support for children at risk of falling behind. Children encounter carefully selected stories, poems and non-fiction that build vocabulary, knowledge, imagination and empathy.

We want children to read accurately and fluently, understand increasingly complex texts and develop a genuine desire to read. Every child—including those in specialist provision—has an appropriate pathway towards reading, communication and access to literature.

Inclusion means participation and belonging

Inclusion is not simply being present in the same building. It means being recognised, participating meaningfully, developing relationships and experiencing genuine membership of the school community.

Children with SEND are entitled to high-quality teaching, appropriate support and access to a broad and balanced curriculum. Planning should remove barriers to learning while preserving subject ambition wherever possible. This reflects the National Curriculum expectation that lessons should be planned so that there are no unnecessary barriers to pupils achieving.

Personal development is deliberately taught

We do not leave children’s personal development to chance.

Children need knowledge about relationships, health, safety, citizenship and the wider world. They also need repeated opportunities to practise making decisions, taking responsibility, collaborating, leading, performing, helping others and responding when things go wrong.

Personal development is therefore taught through:

• PSHE and statutory Relationships and Health Education;

• religious education and understanding different beliefs and cultures;

• physical education, sport and health education;

• online safety and safeguarding education;

• the behaviour curriculum and school routines;

• assemblies and collective worship;

• pupil leadership and democratic participation;

• clubs, teams and performances;

• educational visits, outdoor learning and residential experiences;

• community involvement and social action;

• careers-related learning and encounters with the world of work;

• everyday relationships between children and adults.

SHINE through the curriculum

Our SHINE values describe the people we want our children to become.

Strive

Children learn to participate, practise, persevere and respond constructively to challenge. They understand that success often requires sustained effort and that mistakes are part of learning.

Honesty

Children learn to tell the truth, take responsibility for their decisions, reflect on their actions and repair harm. They develop integrity and learn to make principled choices, including when nobody is watching.

Inclusion

Children learn that everybody belongs and that fairness sometimes means people receiving different support. They respect difference, challenge discrimination and help others to participate.

Nurture

Children learn to form healthy relationships, show kindness, listen to others and look after their own and other people’s wellbeing. They experience warm relationships alongside clear, predictable boundaries.

Excellence

Children take pride in their learning, behaviour, appearance and contribution to the community. Excellence means fulfilling their potential and producing the best work of which they are capable—not being compared unfairly with someone else.

Our values are not slogans or display materials. They are explicitly taught, modelled by adults, recognised in children’s choices and revisited through curriculum content and school life.

Our academic curriculum

We provide a broad curriculum encompassing:

• communication and language;

• personal, social and emotional development;

• physical development;

• English;

• mathematics;

• science;

• history;

• geography;

• religious education;

• computing;

• art and design;

• design and technology;

• music;

• physical education;

• relationships, health and personal, social and economic education;

• languages at Key Stage 2.

Our subject curriculums identify what children will learn and the order in which they will learn it. They are designed to build progressively from Nursery to Year 6, with clear connections between early development and later subject knowledge.

English, mathematics and humanities are supported by carefully selected, evidence-informed curriculum programmes. Read Write Inc. provides a consistent approach to early reading and phonics. Our wider curriculum ensures that children encounter the breadth of knowledge, vocabulary, texts and experiences needed to understand the world.

Subjects retain their individual integrity. Connections are made where these deepen understanding, but subjects are not combined simply to create a theme.

Personal development: preparing children for life

The curriculum must prepare children not only to pass tests, but to live well.

By the time children leave Waterloo, we want them to understand:

• how to form safe, respectful and healthy relationships;

• how their bodies, emotions and needs may change;

• how to protect their physical and mental health;

• how to recognise risk, seek help and report a concern;

• how to stay safe online and evaluate information critically;

• how to respect people whose lives, identities, cultures or beliefs differ from their own;

• how democracy, law, individual liberty, respect and responsibility shape life in modern Britain;

• how to manage disagreement without cruelty or aggression;

• how choices about money, work, learning and health affect their future;

• how they can contribute to their school, community and environment.

We also want children to experience the things that make childhood rich and memorable. Our wider offer is planned to broaden horizons and remove barriers to participation. It includes educational visits, visitors, clubs, sport, music, performance, outdoor learning, residential experiences, places of worship, community projects and pupil leadership.

Disadvantaged pupils and children with SEND are actively prioritised when access to these opportunities might otherwise be unequal. Participation is monitored so that our offer reaches the children who stand to benefit most.

The Early Years

Our curriculum begins with our youngest children, including two-year-olds, and establishes the foundations on which later learning depends.

In the Early Years, children learn through a purposeful combination of:

• warm, responsive interaction with knowledgeable adults;

• explicit teaching;

• carefully planned play;

• high-quality continuous and enhanced provision;

• stories, rhyme, talk and early phonics;

• early mathematical thinking;

• physical development and growing independence;

• routines that build attention, regulation and readiness to learn.

Adults extend children’s thinking and language rather than simply supervising activity. Assessment is used to identify what children know, what they are ready to learn next and where additional support may be needed.

The Early Years curriculum is ambitious for every child. It also recognises that children’s development is not always even or linear and that some children require more repetition, structure, modelling or specialist input.

Mainstream provision

In mainstream classes, all children access the same ambitious subject curriculum wherever this is appropriate.

Teachers use their knowledge of pupils—including SEND, disadvantage, EAL, attendance, safeguarding and prior attainment—to anticipate possible barriers. They then adapt teaching through approaches such as:

• explicit instruction and clear modelling;

• carefully chosen examples;

• pre-teaching or revisiting vocabulary;

• visual, concrete or practical representations;

• scaffolded tasks and guided practice;

• structured pupil talk;

• adapted resources or methods of recording;

• assistive technology and communication systems;

• additional processing time;

• purposeful adult support;

• targeted intervention.

Adaptation should increase access, participation and independence. It should not routinely replace ambitious teaching with easier work or create long-term dependence on an adult.

Specialist provision

Our specialist provisions are an integral part of Waterloo. They support children with autism and cognition and learning needs whose provision is described through their individual plans and Education, Health and Care Plans.

Children in specialist provision follow curricula that are aligned with Waterloo’s whole-school curriculum but adapted to their developmental profiles, communication needs and intended outcomes. Aligned does not always mean identical.

Some children can access substantial elements of age-related subject content with appropriate adaptations. Others require a more individualised curriculum focused on earlier stages of communication, cognition, physical development, regulation, self-care and independence. Some pupils may be working at developmental levels significantly below their chronological age.

For each child, staff identify the right balance across:

• communication and interaction;

• cognition and learning;

• reading, phonics, writing and mathematics;

• physical and sensory development;

• emotional regulation;

• relationships and social understanding;

• independence and self-care;

• safety and preparation for adulthood;

• wider subject knowledge and cultural experiences;

• individual EHCP outcomes.

This is a pathway towards greater access and independence, not a reason to restrict ambition.

Teaching in specialist provision is explicit, structured and responsive. Practical and sensory experiences are used when they have a clear educational purpose, but they do not replace the systematic teaching of knowledge, communication and skills.

Children in specialist provision share the same entitlement to books, visits, performances, clubs, leadership, assemblies, celebrations, outdoor learning and community experiences. Integration with mainstream classes is planned around the interests, needs and potential benefits for each child. It is purposeful, supported and reviewed—not tokenistic or based solely on a child’s age.

Where appropriate, children are supported to increase the time they learn alongside mainstream peers. Equally, access to specialist teaching is protected when this is the provision a child needs to learn successfully.

How we teach

Across Waterloo, strong teaching is characterised by consistency rather than uniformity. Teachers exercise professional judgement within a shared set of principles.

Every classroom should provide:

• a calm, purposeful beginning;

• positive relationships and high expectations;

• clear explanations of what pupils are learning;

• opportunities to connect new learning with prior knowledge;

• explicit teaching and modelling;

• carefully structured practice;

• meaningful pupil talk;

• regular checks for understanding;

• responsive teaching and appropriate adaptation;

• high expectations for behaviour and presentation;

• a purposeful conclusion that identifies what has been learned.

Our approach is grounded in simplicity, stability and consistency. Shared routines reduce uncertainty, protect learning time and allow children to concentrate on the curriculum.

The rules Be Safe, Be Ready and Be Respectful and routines such as Wonderful Walking, Awesome Appearance and Silent Lines form part of a deliberately taught behaviour curriculum. Children are taught how to participate in school life; adults do not assume that every child already knows how.

Assessment and responsive teaching

Assessment helps teachers make better decisions. Its purpose is to identify what children know, what they have misunderstood and what should happen next.

Teachers assess pupils through questioning, observation, discussion, work, retrieval, carefully selected tasks and periodic assessments. Assessment is proportionate and should support teaching rather than create unnecessary workload.

We use assessment to:

• adapt teaching during lessons;

• identify gaps or misconceptions;

• check whether important knowledge has been remembered;

• provide feedback that helps pupils improve;

• identify pupils requiring additional teaching or intervention;

• evaluate the progress of pupils and groups;

• review the effectiveness of curriculum design and provision.

For pupils working significantly below age-related expectations, assessment identifies meaningful progress from individual starting points. It captures small but important gains without limiting the curriculum to fragmented targets.

Progress is not defined only by the quantity of work completed. It may be shown through greater understanding, fluency, retention, communication, independence, generalisation or reduced reliance on support.

What success looks like

We know our curriculum is succeeding when children:

• attend regularly and are ready to learn;

• feel safe, known and valued;

• remember increasingly important knowledge;

• read fluently and communicate effectively;

• apply learning independently and make connections;

• achieve well from their starting points;

• take pride in the quality of their work;

• regulate themselves with increasing independence;

• form positive relationships and repair difficulties;

• demonstrate the SHINE values through their choices;

• participate in the wider life of the school;

• understand difference and know that they belong;

• move successfully to their next stage of education;

• have interests, ambitions and a growing sense of possibility.

We examine both achievement and participation. Strong published outcomes are important, but they do not tell the whole story. We also evaluate the experiences children receive, their personal and social development, the progress of those with complex needs and whether disadvantage or SEND has limited access to any part of school life.

A shared responsibility

The curriculum belongs to everyone at Waterloo.

Leaders establish its purpose, sequence and expectations. Subject leaders ensure that learning develops coherently over time. Teachers bring the curriculum to life through strong subject knowledge and responsive teaching. Teaching assistants enable learning and independence. Pastoral and inclusion staff help children overcome barriers. Families contribute essential knowledge about their children. Governors and trustees provide support and challenge.

Most importantly, pupils are active participants. Their voice helps us understand what they remember, how included they feel, which barriers remain and how their experiences can be improved.

Our curriculum test

Whenever we introduce, adapt or review any aspect of the curriculum, we ask:

1. What do we want children to know, understand, be able to do or become?

2. Why does this matter for Waterloo’s children?

3. How does it build on what came before and prepare children for what comes next?

4. How does it strengthen communication, language or reading?

5. Is it ambitious for pupils who are disadvantaged or have SEND?

6. What barriers might prevent a child from participating or succeeding?

7. How will those barriers be removed without unnecessarily reducing the intended learning?

8. How does this contribute to children’s personal development?

9. How will children revisit, remember and apply what they learn?

10. How will we know whether it has made the intended difference?

If we cannot answer these questions clearly, the curriculum choice requires further thought.

Our promise

Our curriculum is our promise to Waterloo’s children.

It promises that their circumstances will be understood but will not define their future. It promises that difference will be met with thoughtful support rather than reduced expectation. It promises access to powerful knowledge, rich language and worthwhile experiences. It promises that children will be taught how to learn, how to live alongside others and how to contribute.

Above all, it promises that every child - whether learning in Nursery, a mainstream classroom or specialist provision - will be known well, taught well and included well, so that they can SHINE at Waterloo and beyond.