Teaching, Learning and Curriculum
Teaching & Learning
At Orchard Community Trust (OCT), our aim is to provide high-quality teaching and learning experiences that lead to consistently high levels of pupil attainment and achievement. We strive to ensure that every child, regardless of background or ability, receives the best possible education to reach their full potential.
Our schools foster calm, safe learning environments where pupils are encouraged to explore, investigate, and become independent learners. With a significant proportion of disadvantaged pupils, pupils with special educational needs, and a high level of mobility, we recognise that each child deserves the highest quality teaching and support to thrive.
At OCT, we define the key elements essential for ensuring high-quality teaching as:
High expectations for behaviour and clear routines
Excellence in the quality of instruction
Mastery of subject knowledge
Ensuring learning "sticks" through effective retrieval practices
Adaptive teaching to meet diverse needs
Consistent, impactful assessment and feedback
To ensure continual improvement in teaching and learning, we apply OCT’s Teaching & Learning Principles, which underpin the key elements of high-quality education, across all our schools. These principles guide our approach to instruction, ensuring that best practices are consistently applied. We also use Development Drop-Ins as part of our commitment to improving teaching practice. These regular sessions provide opportunities for teachers to observe, reflect, and share ideas, promoting collaborative development across the Trust.
Our schools are committed to being inclusive, recognising the unique needs and aspirations of every pupil. By providing opportunities for all pupils to make the best possible progress, we aim to help them achieve the highest personal success.
Each school within the Trust is responsible for developing their own teaching, learning, behaviour, and curriculum policies, which are tailored to the specific needs of their pupils. These policies must align with the overall vision and priorities of Orchard Community Trust.
At Orchard Community Trust, we are committed to ensuring that all pupils, regardless of their circumstances, receive the highest quality education and support to help them succeed.
Curriculum
In our schools we are committed to providing a curriculum that prepares our pupils to thrive and flourish, regardless of their background, and equips them with the skills and mindset needed for future success. Our overarching goal is to develop future citizens who have a clear sense of their potential and their place within the wider world.
The curriculum at Orchard Community Trust schools is coherent, inclusive, and relevant. We provide a range of first-hand, practical, and creative opportunities that empower pupils to make choices and take ownership of their learning. Pupils are encouraged to work both collaboratively and independently, developing the skills they need to become effective problem-solvers and critical thinkers. Through a dynamic and engaging curriculum, our pupils are given opportunities to communicate, explore, think, predict, question, enquire, explain, debate, challenge, and aspire – not just for life within school, but for life beyond it.
In addition, we are rolling out an ambitious digital strategy across our schools to harness the power of technology in supporting children’s learning. This strategy aims to enhance teaching and learning through digital tools, enabling all pupils, including those in our special schools, to access resources, collaborate effectively, and develop vital digital literacy skills. We are committed to ensuring that our digital approach is accessible to every pupil, with tailored solutions and support to meet individual needs. This will help prepare all our pupils for the future, regardless of their background or abilities.
Our schools use the OCT Curriculum Principles to ensure that the curriculum is consistently challenging, inclusive, and forward-thinking. These principles guide our approach, ensuring a shared understanding of what constitutes a high-quality curriculum, whilst allowing for flexibility to meet the unique needs of each school’s pupils. To support this continual development, we have established a Subject Peer Review system, where colleagues collaborate to evaluate and improve curriculum delivery. This system encourages ongoing professional dialogue, the sharing of best practices, and a collective drive to raise standards across all subjects.
By engaging with our curriculum, pupils increase their knowledge and skills, preparing them to understand and contribute meaningfully to the world around them. Our curriculum encourages pupils to be lifelong learners, ready to face the challenges of the future with confidence and resilience.
At Orchard Community Trust, we are committed to continually improving our curriculum through collaboration, reflection, and innovation, ensuring that all our pupils have the tools they need to succeed in both school and beyond.
Assessment:
Our approach to assessment is aligned across the Trust, ensuring consistency in how we set targets and track pupil progress. Using the OCT Policy for Target Setting and Pupil Progress, we ensure a consistent and structured approach to monitoring pupils’ achievements and setting goals for their development. This policy guides our process of setting meaningful targets for individual pupils and groups, helping teachers plan interventions and adapt instruction to meet pupils' needs effectively.
Feedback plays a critical role in this process. It is always constructive, focusing on both successes and areas for improvement against clear learning objectives and success criteria. This allows pupils to reflect on their progress, become motivated, and continue developing as reflective learners.
Assessment is used not only as a tool to measure performance at specific points in time, but as an ongoing process that gathers information to support future learning. It enables us to identify where pupils are in their learning journey and how to help them move forward, both individually and collectively. Assessment drives the target-setting process, informing teaching strategies and decisions about the support required for different groups of pupils.
To ensure consistency, the five primary schools within the Trust all use the same assessment and data tracking system, allowing for a unified approach to tracking and reporting pupil progress. Our two special schools, while using a bespoke system tailored to the specific needs of their pupils, follow similar principles to ensure that each child’s progress is accurately assessed and supported.
At Orchard Community Trust, assessment is a powerful tool for raising standards, enabling us to continually refine teaching practices and provide pupils with the targeted support they need to achieve their potential.
Please see individual school policies and websites for further details on all of the above, including our approach to reading.