Learning & Teaching

The Edwardsville Way 

In Edwardsville Primary School, our learners are at the heart of everything we do. Teaching and learning ‘The Edwardsville Way’ ensures that our pupils make accelerated progress from their starting points, develop a lifelong love of learning and are happy in school each day. We are a learning organisation and utilise a range of evidence-backed approaches to ensure all pupils become the best they can be, fulfil the four purposes of our curriculum and Explore, Excite, Excel! We believe that it takes a community to raise a pupil and our pupils, staff, governors, parents and the wider community all have a role to play in how pupils learn at Edwardsville.

‘The Edwardsville Way’ is our interpretation of Donaldson’s 12 pedagogical principles and what these principles looks like in our school:

• Pupils will have opportunities to learn through real-life authentic contexts linked to their topics and key school events.
• Pupils are aware of what they need to do to make progress and develop their metacognition to identify ways forward.
• Pupils are happy, safe and nurtured in school. The school fosters positive relationships with its pupils, staff, parents, governors and the wider community.
• Pupils and staff work together to innovate solutions to problems is an intrinsic part of life at Edwardsville. We are all highly-effective communicators.
• Pupils have individualised targets which they will work on discretely with their teacher. Pupils’ progress against their personalised targets will be used as a measure of the quality of teaching and learning at Edwardsville.
• Lessons are engaging and fast-paced, utilising the most appropriate pedagogy to facilitate learners in achieving their learning objectives.
• Pupils will develop their problem-solving, creative and critical thinking skills subconsciously through immersive topic teaching. Pupils will apply their learning in new contexts to generate imaginative outcomes.
• Each Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE) has secure pedagogical content knowledge in place to ensure consistency in quality of teaching across the school. Learning is sequential and provides opportunities for pupils to build on their knowledge, skills and experiences within a unit of work, a topic, an academic year and their overall time in primary school.
• The whole school community supports the pupils in fulfilling the four purposes through the creation of the Edwardsville ‘Four Purpose Passport’. Pupils regularly reflect on their growth against the four purposes throughout their time at Edwardsville.
• Assessment for learning (AfL) is embedded in every lesson and used to move learning forward through actionable feedback, effective questioning and using errors as opportunities for learning.
• AoLE leaders’ expertise support teachers in making authentic and meaningful connections between AoLEs and between distinct disciplines within each AoLE.
• The Literacy and Numeracy Framework (LNF) and Digital Competence Framework ( DCF)  are incorporated readily throughout the curriculum. Skills are first taught in LLC, Maths and ICT lessons before being applied in other AoLEs.