Curriculum – Vision and Model

GREENSIDE Film Factory

Breaking Boundaries – Flip the Learning!

Greenside – An Inspirational Space of Experiential Learning

Learning is Everything, Everything is Learning!

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Curriculum Model

The Greenside Experiential Learning Cycle:

1. Our students must be willing to be actively involved in every learning experience
2. Our students must be able to reflect on their learning experiences
3. Our students must possess and use critical thinking & analytical skills to conceptualize the experience
4. Our students must possess curiosity, creativity, decision making and problem solving skills in order to use the new ideas gained from their learning experiences

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Vision & Philosophy

At Greenside we believe students learn best when they are challenged, stimulated and engaged.

We believe students learn best through a holistic curriculum when skills and knowledge are intrinsically and explicitly linked, learning is contextualized and also applied.

Our Breaking Boundaries Learning Model aims to enhance the range of learning opportunities, the depth of learning opportunities and the challenge we offer all students.

We aim to explore The Power of Film to support learning and ensure all students make excellent progress and meet age related expectations at the very least. All our students will be ‘World Ready and Test Ready’ through an Arts education.

We believe in the concept of lifelong learning and the idea that both students and adults learn new things every day. We maintain that learning should be a rewarding and enjoyable experience for everyone; it should be creative and enjoyable. Through our teaching we equip our students with the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to be able to make informed choices about the important things in their lives. We believe that appropriate teaching and learning experiences help students to lead happy and rewarding lives at Greenside and beyond.

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STAR Days

Our STAR Day learning (Students as Researchers) takes place in age related classes and students follow a holistic Experiential Learning Model based on Learning Experiences.

Through these Learning Experiences students:

• Engage in a fun and active way;

• Articulate their learning through talk and practical learning

           and then apply their learning in many different contexts.

We learn our English and Maths through a linked approach and through STEM projects.

Our students are confident Scientists, Technologists, Engineers and Mathematicians.

Each half term students are inspired by a different Film Text – exploring ‘big world questions’ and opening up new and exciting knowledge and skills to learn. Our Greenside students can often be found making films and sharing their learning through Google Classroom as they become 21st century learners.

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English

At Greenside we understand that the development of language (spoken and written) is a crucial World Ready skill,  We expect all our students to be excellent communicators, to listen actively and to speak with confidence. Our students are supported to develop a love of reading to help them in life and for pleasure and to become skilful and imaginative writers.

Spoken languages and listening skills are taught by giving students a wide range of opportunities and purposes.  Students engage in Drama and performance throughout Greenside.

Our classrooms are areas of learning carousels, where students become truly independent directed studies and becoming researchers within a team. GPS (Grammar, punctuation and spelling) is taught within our STAR Day sessions to help students become even better communicators.

Reading is taught through interactive activities and within Reading Tree sessions as well as on an individual basis.  We are passionate in our attempt to inspire students in a love of reading for life.  Students are taught a wide range of strategies to decode and make sense of texts, including phonics.  We depend on our partnership with parents/ carers to support students  in their daily home reading programme.

At Greenside we follow the Letters & Sounds scheme to support our phonics learning as well as utilising other resources to offer a deep and rich learning experience. We use a combination of the Oxford Reading Tree and Big Cat reading schemes as part of our Reading Tree experiences, as well as exploring other texts matched to or inspired by our half termly film choices.

Students are given regular and different opportunities to write for varied purposes and audiences.  We favour a workshop approach to developing writing skills.  We follow the Jarman handwriting model based on a cursive script.  All students are taught to use this from Foundation Stage onwards. 

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Maths

We all love Maths at Greenside, whether we are being times table Rock Stars, taking part in an arithmetic competition or problem solving a real life scenario!

We ensure students are Test Ready with a strong grasp of maths concepts.

Aspects of number and algebra, shape, space and measures, statistics are covered each half term.  There is an emphasis on developing arithmetic and mental calculation strategies and problem-solving activities which require students to apply their knowledge and understanding of concepts. 

Students also enjoy applying their Maths in our STEM projects which offers opportunities for in-depth learning inspired by our Films.

Recent STEM learning has included making bridges in Y1 to help Paddington travel across London.

Making boats in Y5 linked to The Life of Pi and constructing train carriages in Y6 as part of the mystery of Murder on the Orient Express!

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World Ready – Film Crew Days

Being ‘World Ready’ encourages our teachers and support staff to look beyond the National Curriculum and Into The Film Factory Learning Model to recognize skills that students should develop in order to become well-rounded, confident citizens of the world.

We believe that our students should be able to apply a range of ‘life skills’’ to a range of different experiences, beyond primary and secondary education. The students that we are now teaching are a generation whose career paths may not yet be clear; it is likely that their jobs have not been created due to growing technology and evolving industries and it will be necessary for our students to know how to transfer a range of skills in different work places.

This is the reason behind implementing a World Ready Assessment Program; to ensure that we are empowering our students to access, develop and effectively use a range of skills that will allow them to perform well not only during primary and secondary school, but onwards into their futures.

Every Thursday our students work in vertical Film Crews.

Our focus is on building World Ready and ICB skills through large scale projects.

In the past we have:

• Curated a Photographic Exhibition

• Made Documentaries on Homelessness, Politics: A Student’s View, Children’s Literature.

• Made feature films

• Created a Pop-up theatre production

• Made Music Videos

• This year we will be making sculptures and short films about the Continents

• Become a Science Lab exploring so many different elements of Science!

• Created a Theatre Company, writing and performing our own theatre pieces

These days provide students with an opportunity to develop leadership skills, resilience, action research and become truly World Ready. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to know more.