Strategic Priorities

At Belsay School we are committed to continual improvement.

Following frank and honest self-evaluation we have identified three priorities that we feel are essential to our future growth as a school.

Teaching children to read is our highest academic priority. We want every child to be a fluent reader by the age of 7 and, if not, every effort is made to ensure they catch up quickly so that they can access our ambitious, broad and balanced curriculum which is designed and delivered in a way to help them know more and remember more and to empower them to act as positive agents of change in their communities and the wider world.

Strategic priority 1	To develop early reading skills in all pupils; to ensure intervention where progress is below expectations in order that those pupils rapidly catch up; and to develop a desire to read for pleasure leading to lifelong learning and achievement.
Strategic priority 2	To plan and embed a purposefully sequenced and interconnected curriculum that supports children to develop deep understanding of key concepts.
Strategic priority 3	To raise the quality of teaching and learning to enable all pupils to accelerate progress and remember more.

Strategic Priority 1

To ensure we have rigorous and robust delivery and tracking of phonics with high quality, engaging and stage appropriate texts for pupils to read. To ensure that these texts are well organised, well managed, accessible and well maintained.

To ensure all pupils have access to high quality stories through planned story times.

To ensure all areas of the curriculum are developed through the use of high quality texts.

Strategic Priority 2

To ensure that each curriculum subject area is sequenced appropriately, building knowledge and growing understanding of key concepts and vocabulary.

To identify clear endpoints to enable accurate assessment.

To embed the skills and knowledge of Global Citizenship throughout the curriculum.

Strategic Priority 3

To ensure all national curriculum subjects are timetabled across the year and taught as planned.

To provide robust opportunities for retrieval practice and to develop questioning to ensure deeper learning.

To ensure that there is accurate assessment of gaps in learning across subjects and across year groups to inform planning.