Active Learn (2023b) ‘Find and make number bonds to 20’, Power Maths WRM Edition. Available at: https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/app/plans/powermaths2023/unit/1101068 (Accessed: 7 February 2024).

Active Learn (2023c) ‘Add and subtract 2 multiples of 10’, Power Maths WRM Edition. Available at: https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/app/plans/powermaths2023/unit/1101086 (Accessed: 7 February 2024).

Active Learn (2023d) ‘Use known number bonds’, Power Maths WRM Edition. Available at: https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/app/plans/powermaths2023/unit/1101106 (Accessed: 10 February 2024).

Active Learn (2023e) ‘Add and subtract 1s, 10s, 100s, 1,000s’, Power Maths WRM Edition. Available at: https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/app/plans/powermaths2023/unit/1101127 (Accessed: 10 February 2024).

Active Learn (2023f) ‘Mental strategies (addition)’, Power Maths WRM Edition. Available at: https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/app/plans/powermaths2023/unit/1101149 (Accessed: 11 February 2024).

Active Learn (2023g) ‘Mental calculations (2)’, Power Maths WRM Edition. Available at: https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/app/plans/powermaths2023/unit/1101172 (Accessed: 13 February 2024).

Ashbee, R. (2021) Curriculum: theory, culture and the subject specialisms. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Bruner, J. S. (1966) Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge, Mass: Belkapp Press.

Cotton, T. (2021) Understanding and teaching primary mathematics. Oxon: Routledge.

DCSF (2008) Personalised Learning – A Practical Guide. Available at: https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/8447/7/00844-2008DOM-EN_Redacted.pdf (Accessed: 2 November 2023).

Department for Education (2015) Special educational needs and disability code of practise 0-25 – Statutory guidance for organisations which work with and support children and young people who have special educational needs or disabilities. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/398815/SEND_Code_of_Practice_January_2015.pdf(Accessed: 29 October 2023).

Department for Education (2023)  Early years foundation stage statutory framework for group and school based providers. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65aa5e42ed27ca001327b2c7/EYFS_statutory_framework_for_group_and_school_based_providers.pdf(Accessed: 15 February 2024).

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(Accessed: 21 October 2023).

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(Accessed: 28 October 2023).

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Kidd, D. (2020) A curriculum of hope: as rich in humanity as in knowledge. London: Crown House Publishing.

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(Accessed: 19 December 2023).

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Therefore, I have chosen to focus on the aim, highlighted in blue above, because I think that it is important that children learn the historical disciplinary knowledge not just so that they can successfully progress into KS3, but also so that children learn about the people that came before us and can learn based on their actions (Ashbee, 2021).

want to understand strategies to teach children the historical process, to support them to progress in history.

My placement school used the scheme Power Maths with White Rose, so I will be critiquing lesson plans from that scheme as I was able to observe these lessons being taught.

Since children enter early years settings at different stages, some children may find using the representational presentation accessible, whereas other children may struggle to access it. To support these children and ensure they still develop fluency in calculations, support such as concrete objects could be vital in building these connections. Without concrete objects, these children may struggle and lack fluency.

Kidd (2020) comments on the importance of a coherent curriculum. This means looking at the next stage that the children will enter and finding strategies to best prepare them for that stage. Ensuring that children develop a secure understanding of the calculations required at early years is vital in preparing children for the KS1 curriculum.

These lesson plans can support a low threshold high ceiling approach. This approach means that all children can access the work and all children can be challenged (NRICH, 2019). This could look like using concrete objects to support children who are struggling, for example, using mathlink cubes to support the year 1 lesson. To challenge children, you should keep them all on the same topic but support ‘some to gain greater depth’ (NCETM, 2015a, p.5). This could look like providing them with the challenge (on lesson plan) or asking the children to create further questions for each other.

Furthermore, Cotton (2021) comments that teachers must be careful in removing concrete objects when children are beginning to access the abstract stage. But this contradicts the requirements in KS2, as children are expected to do the calculations mentally for their SATs as they won’t have access to concrete objects to support them, nor the time to work out each arithmetic question using a written method.

The implementation focuses more on how to achieve a coherent and ambitious curriculum without creating unnecessary workload on the children or teachers.

To implement this, it is useful to consider using the graduated approach (attached is a picture of this cycle). This approach essentially assesses what barriers there are to accessing the curriculum, and then focuses on support that may help to overcome any barriers. In my experience, a huge barrier in geography for SEND children is that there can be a lot of reading and writing including heavy terminology that cognitively can be tricky to access.

Once these barriers to learning are highlighted, the teacher can look at what support can be put in place. One strategy that may support children in geography to access the curriculum is implementing a universal design for learning (UDL). A UDL involves presenting key concepts and ideas in multiple ways (Westwood, 2018, p.50). Westwood suggests instead of using books alone, encourage the children to look at films, audio recordings, drawings, debates, interviewing experts to help children establish these connections in the long-term memory.

The impact of completing the graduated approach cycle is that there can be precise adaptations, which Ofsted (2023b) suggests works more effectively than differentiating work, as this can create wider gaps. Furthermore, Scoffham (2010, p.324) suggests that it can be easy to miss the progress made by lower attaining/SEND children because their progress may be less compared to their peers, but progress is still progress even if it is in smaller chunks.

However, Ofsted (2023b) comments that although many schools do adapt well for learners with SEND in geography, some simply differentiate the work which creates the impact of wider gaps in the learning.

Attached is an example of a lesson that I observed in year 6 that implemented formative assessment; the lesson was about how and why climate change can increase flooding. At the end of the lesson, the teacher created this mind map with the children to consolidate the learning. It was clear that the children understood the impacts of flooding, but they struggled to recall why or how climate change increased floods. This informed the teacher that he needed to revisit this concept because the children had not fully understood it, this is a benefit of using formative assessment, as the teacher receives immediate feedback (Scoffham, 2010). Ofsted (2023) acknowledges that formative assessment can be more impactful than summative assessment for geography, but they also suggest being wary using formative assessment to know what all children understand, as this relies on children volunteering an answer. For example, the teacher asked children to volunteer their knowledge on floods, but what one child can recall does not reflect what the rest of the child can recall, and vice versa.

The impact of using effective assessment in geography is that the teacher can identify what children understand and what needs to be revisited in future lessons (Ofsted, 2023b), so that the children can progress with their geographical knowledge and go on to use this for future learning or employment.

However, Ofsted (2023b) also commented that formative assessment was only effective in schools that devoted more time to geography. Therefore, if geography is not given much time, like my placement for example where geography was only taught for one hour every other half term, then the positive impact mentioned prior may not be applicable.

Focussing on using the resource of ‘teddies, toys, baby toys', the teacher could ask the children questions about who may have played with them and how they are similar or different to the toys now. The children could discuss how technology can be a toy for young children now whereas historically, toys were only soft teddies. This activity can encourage children to describe, make observations, infer, and identify similarities and differences.

It is important that the teacher has good subject knowledge on the concept being taught because if they don’t, the teacher may struggle to ask or answer any questions from the children (Russel, 2016), and for this activity, asking and answering questions is crucial in not creating misconceptions for the children.

However, when using this approach, it is important that the teacher has good subject knowledge to correct any misconceptions that arise, because if they aren’t corrected then this can create gaps in a child’s understanding.

Ofsted (2024) School Inspection Handbook. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-handbook-eif/school-inspection-handbook-for-september-2023#evaluating-the-quality-of-education-part-2 (Accessed 26 January 2024).

Russel, C. (2016) Essential Primary History. Croydon: Open University Press.

Stolare, M. (2017) ‘Did the Vikings really have helmets with horns? Sources and narrative content in Sweedish upper primary school history teaching’, Long Marston: Routledge, 45(1), pp. 36-50.

Truscott, A. (2024) Impact of flooding on climate change [photograph].

Turner, E. (2022) Simplicitus: The Interconnected Primary Curriculum & Effective Subject Leadership. Woodbridge: John Catt Educational Ltd.

Another advantage of thematic planning is that it can provide children with experiences, rather than just passively learning the content (Kidd, 2020). When I created my interpretation of Kidd’s planning, I considered the five pillars, hence why in the community section I chose to plan for the children to listen to a speaker. Experiences such as a speaker coming in can be inspiring and memorable. I still remember a Muslim speaker coming in to my primary school to tell us about the persecution and discrimination that her community faced, just because of the religion she believes in. This had an impact on the way I think about religion and was more memorable than if my teacher had simply explained to us about persecution and discrimination. However, on my placement I spoke to the Head who told me that one of the reasons that he moved away from this approach was because of the pressure it put on his staff to plan, as this can be time consuming and feel daunting to find experiences such as these, even though they are beneficial to children.

The biggest critique that my placement Head observed on thematic planning was that the learning was superficial, and that it was difficult to improve this as the subject leads couldn’t observe their subject specifically or look in their subjects’ books, as the lessons were intertwined and difficult to separate.  He referenced the Ofsted (2024) handbook (this is a revised version) that commented on how it is the subject lead’s role to understand their subject and its curriculum within the school. Since the subject lead’s lacked understanding of their subject, this may have affected the overall Ofsted score, as well as impact on coherence and progression within the school.

Referring back to my placement, this assessment was completed in morning activities and had no impact on the lesson plans for future lessons, it seemed to be a check box of what the children knew with no purpose.

Ofsted (2023c) suggests that to assess effectively, the assessment should be identifying gaps and misconceptions and then adapt future lessons to target these areas. If used effectively, this may ensure that children are at the expectation for their age requirement, and prepared for the next stage.