STEM

As a community we have the highest aspirations for all our students, regardless of their background, and are ambitious in the breadth and depth of knowledge we want our students to gain in their subjects.

Our Curriculum has been designed using a Trivium framework encouraging students to Know Well, Think Well and Communicate Well. Students need to develop rich foundational knowledge, be able to think and deepen their understanding through questioning, discussion and debate. Be able to communicate and express their learning in a variety of forms.

As Tom Sherrington states in The Learning Rainforest, “Knowledge is key in a curriculum but so too is the ability to develop capacity to question and challenge, to engage in dialect of the trivium*, to contribute to debate and conversation.”

Thamesview seeks to go beyond a curriculum based on knowledge alone, to a curriculum that builds thought, expression and character.

The Trivium as outlined by Martin Robinson has three parts for students;

Knowledge (AKA Grammar):

Learning involves connecting new information with what is stored in our long-term memory.  Therefore, limited prior learning can limit our future learning.  Development of a rich knowledge base essentially makes us more intelligent by creating more branches for new learning and ideas to connect with.  Without much foundational knowledge of a topic it is difficult for learners to form their own ideas and to work independently.  Teachers have a vital part to play in leading the learning process to ensure that conceptual understanding progressively builds over time.  The curriculum must be coherently constructed and sequenced across subject disciplines to achieve this.   The development of a broad vocabulary is also a key part of this pillar. Thamesview places high importance on every subject area having a coherent and strong approach to successfully improving and strengthening disciplinary literacy within our school. This work is based on the research of the EEF and Alex Quigley.

Elements of Teaching & Learning related to Knowledge:

• Clarity through explanations & modelling 
• Responsive teaching strategies
• Repetition & spaced retrieval practice 
• Regular low level stakes assessment to identify and close gaps & address misconceptions.
• Disciplinary Literacy strategies to secure and cement knowledge for learners.
• Relevant Rosenshine principles of effective implementation – Thamesview School expects all staff to know and implement Rosenshine principles in curriculum implementation.  

Exploration (AKA Dialectic):

Simply knowing things is insufficient. Encouraging our students to think, debate and consider alternative views is a vital part of the education we provide.  Knowing things without the skill to explore knowledge further is of limited value to our students in the wider world. We encourage our students at Thamesview to be respectful of others, to be resilience when learning or when ideas are challenging, to be ambitious for themselves, seeking to take knowledge beyond the just knowing and retaining of facts.

Elements of Teaching and Learning related to Exploration: 

• Real world experience, challenges and experimentation  

• Debate, critical thinking & deep questioning
• Problem solving & reflection
• Character Education
• Relevant Rosenshine principles of effective implementation – Thamesview School expects all staff to know and implement Rosenshine principles in curriculum implementation.  

Communication (AKA Rhetoric):

We want our students to leave Thamesview confident communicators. Explaining ideas publicly strengthens knowledge.  This pillar is not, however, limited to public speaking.  Any performance involves communication, whether it be a Sporting or creative performance, essay, speech or exhibition of work.  These performances help to develop a range of qualities that prepare our learners well for their future lives.  Ensuring all our learners can communicate in a clear, articulate and convincing manner, in a variety of ways, is vital.  

Elements of Teaching & Learning related to Communication:

• Public performance & extended writing   
• Presentations, exhibitions and displays.
• Demonstrating Thamesview Character values.
• Relevant Rosenshine principles of effective implementation – Thamesview School expects all staff to know and implement Rosenshine principles in curriculum implementation.   At Thamesview we aim to build our curriculum around five key principles.

1. A curriculum that has Coherence for students – explaining to them what they are learning and when and why.
2. A curriculum that provides all students with a wide and deep range of Experience(s).
3. A curriculum that equips students with Knowledge and the ability to use it, develop it and be inspired by it.
4. A curriculum that Expands horizons for students.
5. A curriculum that represents all creating a sense of Belonging

STEM@thamesview

Curriculum Intent

The STEM curriculum here at Thamesview has been uniquely designed 

to encompass all aspects from the STEM disciplines, including subjects such as Science, Technology and ICT, Engineering and Maths.

The STEM programme currently runs through Key Stage 3, and allows students to use their subject specific domain knowledge to develop their understanding of how STEM appears and operates in the real world. As a result, our STEM lessons bring context and substance to our whole school curriculum, by exploring a wide range of possible careers and jobs within the STEM industries, whilst also raising our student’s cultural capital.

Ultimately our inclusive STEM curriculum allows our entire cohort of key stage 3 students to gain access to, engage and participate in, current, historical, diverse and immersive global issues and discoveries. In addition, our carefully picked and planned topics seek to capture our students enquiring minds, develop problem solving capabilities, encourage team working skills, and practice their scientific oracy.

Topics that are taught throughout the three year curriculum are;

1. Space exploration
2. Dinosaurs
3. The Ocean
4. Racing Cars
5. Climatology
6. Making Music
7.  

To facilitate our STEM programme successfully, it is fundamental that we continue to make links to our local area and beyond. This will enable our students to develop an appreciation for their immediate area and the facilities and resources around them. This will also naturally allow our students to become more knowledgeable members of society, hopefully leaving us as young adults with a greater appreciation for themselves and their local environment. In addition, we aim to use some of local facilities in order to achieve these objectives, making contact and developing links with our local business people.

Our STEM lessons are also tailored towards deepening the importance of STEM subjects in future education and job opportunities, by exposing them to a wide range of fascinating career pathways that they may never have thought of before, or dared believed were possible.

STEM Curriculum Implementation

The curriculum at Thamesview School is based around the Trivium framework which encourages all students to Know Well, Think Well and Communicate Well. Our 3 year STEM programme has therefore been created with this framework, at the forefront of the design, seeking to also encourage and develop our students natural curiosity for the wider world around them, with lessons that are structured around subject areas that historically and continue to be our students “favourite” things to learn. Therefore, at Thamesview we are dedicated to planning and delivering our STEM lessons in a way that will continue to develop and organically feed our students enquiring minds.

Our STEM lessons are also designed to encourage our students to reach their maximum potential at all times, allowing all of our students to build on current skills, whilst also developing new and innovative ways of solving problems. All students will have access to the resources and facilities that will enable them to do this successfully. In addition, our staff are all fully aware of those students that may find it difficult to access and take on  these opportunities, therefore our teaching practices, with regards to ensuring effective learning strategies and support plans, are implemented in every lesson, and are accessible to all.

STEM lesson teaching and delivery also seeks to incorporate those quality first teaching strategies based around Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction such as guided practice, effective modelling, scaffolding and language support. Questioning and communication are also areas that are fundamental to the success of STEM implementation. All students are widely encouraged to discuss, debate and demonstrate their substantive knowledge throughout our STEM lessons and projects, in many different ways. This allows our students to acknowledge and appreciate their success in the continuation of an ever evolving, cross curricula, forward thinking, problem solving schema.

STEM lessons are also planned to promote challenge and push boundaries for learning. We aim to implement project-based tasks that encourage students to think outside the realms of the possible, allowing them to explore Global STEM projects that have sought to achieve goals that were once thought impossible. Incorporating challenge and outside the box thinking encourages deeper thinking, and develops problem solving skills, along with team working, analytical skills and critical thought processing. We therefore seek to create, through our curriculum design, intent and implantation, a new generation of STEM enthusiasts

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SCHEMES OF WORK

Subject Core Knowledge Maps

STEM PoS 2022

Reading ad Literacy Strategies in STEM

Lesson Specific Strategies;

1. Communicate key vocabulary words to students and ensure they are reviewed frequently, checking understanding

• Introducing vocabulary, and breaking down new words using prefix, suffix as well as entomology and morphology of vocabulary

2. Model good writing for students often, and provide frequent opportunities for students to practice disciplinary writing

• Students should have access to quality modelled writing, as well as disciplinary based strategies support their writing.

3. Model good reading for students, in addition to providing opportunities to read within lessons

• Provide opportunities for teacher led, student led and independent reading, allowing students practice reading for specific disciplines.

4. Teachers to model good oracy for students and provide opportunities for students to practice their disciplinary oracy

• Providing key words/phrases for to use in academic speech
• Modelling academic speech and correcting errors in academic speech