Our bespoke curriculum has been crafted over several years to ensure that it is engaging and ambitious for all our children.  At St John’s, we make it a priority to use evidence informed research to help us improve teaching and learning i.e. how we deliver our curriculum.

The Education Endowment Foundation is an independent organisation committed to extensive educational research and guiding schools on how to tackle inequalities in education. Its research into supporting high quality teaching underpins its 2021 guidance report Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools.  The report cites five specific teaching approaches (Five-a-day) as a guide to high quality teaching.

St John’s Five a Day Journey

Over 2023 and 2024, all teaching staff have worked towards the goal of growing more confident in using this approach. The impact can be seen in children’s engagement, learning and in closing gaps in attainment.

Here are some tools we explored and developed over the year.

Thinking Matters

Evidence suggests that the use of ​metacognitive strategies can be worth the equivalent of an additional +7 months’ progress when used well.  EEF Metacognition and Self - Regulated Learning Guidance Report  2021

This year, we are working with Thinking Matters to further develop metacognition and our understanding of the science of learning to help improve our practice.  Thinking Matters is an organisation that supports schools and is driven by key research from the University of Exeter’s Cognitive Education Unit.

A whole school approach to developing children’s thinking skills aims to enable every child to:

• think critically and independently
• understand how he/she learns best
• grow in resilience and become more adaptable to change.
• grow in self-regulation and show an awareness of strengths and weaknesses
• motivate self to engage in and improve learning

Staff and our Metacognition Drive Team have been working with Thinking Matters and have designed our target. This outlines what intelligent learning behaviours and cognitive (types of thinking) skills we would like to develop. This is set in the wider context of our school values. 

Over this year, staff and children are exploring tools called thinking frames. 

Thinking Frames:

• support learning through strengthening connections within the brain.

• make specific thinking processes explicit using a consistent visual pattern and associated language of thinking.

• provide a common visual language for all students and teachers and are flexible for use across all subject areas.

• can be used in combination for depth and complexity to support thinking at all levels, for example to deepen understanding and comprehension of written texts.

For more information, click on the leaflet above.