Curriculum Design -Silk and Stone Curriculum
Whole School Curriculum
Silk and Stone Curriculum - Unique to Adswood Primary!
Rooted in our Landscape, Woven into our Future. This curriculum is the heartbeat of our school community."
Our vision here at Adswood Primary is for all children to ‘Enjoy, Believe and Achieve’. We are committed to delivering a curriculum which enables all our children to become confident and ambitious, lifelong learners. We aim to develop our children’s skills and knowledge as well as encouraging curiosity, aspiration and a love of learning that will continue into adulthood. We aim to deliver a curriculum that is suited to our unique context.
Silk & Stone: Curriculum Intent: Architects of a sustainable and equitable future.
The Heritage: Our Name
The Silk & Stone curriculum is named to honour the unique dual heritage of our town: the pioneering silk mills that connected us to the world, and the red sandstone foundations upon which our community was built. Symbolising both resilience and innovation, this name reflects our commitment to weaving local pride into a global perspective, ensuring our scholars understand their place in a vast, interconnected history.
The Vision: Stockport Scholars
The Silk & Stone curriculum is a high-challenge academic journey designed to transform our children into Stockport Scholars: knowledgeable, resilient, and visionary citizens. We believe that to understand the global landscape, we must first master the ground beneath our feet. By utilising the town of Stockport as a living laboratory, we bridge the gap between local heritage and global responsibility. We ensure that our scholars depart as the "Architects of the Future," equipped to design a sustainable and equitable world.
Our Memory Architecture: Grounded in Stockport – Connected to the World
To help our scholars categorise and retain information, we ensure deep retention through a Thematic Spiral. We anchor complex global concepts to stable, local foundations using three specific mechanisms:
- Local Anchors (The Hook): Every unit is rooted in a local context—from landmarks like the Viaduct to the Mersey and our local parks. This provides a tangible, familiar "home" for new knowledge.
- Specialist Lenses (The Role): Scholars are apprenticed into disciplinary roles (e.g., Hydrologist, Field Geologist, or Undercover Apprentice). This provides a consistent framework for how to think, speak, and act like a subject expert.
- Thematic Stitches (The Schema): We identify core concepts—such as Standardisation, Structural Integrity, and Evolutionary Adaptation—that act as the curriculum's "Stitches." These mental maps are revisited with increasing complexity to ensure knowledge is embedded and reinforced.
The Three Pillars of Implementation
- Disciplinary Excellence: We apprentice our scholars into Specialist Roles. Rather than passive recipients of facts, they act as investigators of the world. They utilise the specific tools, vocabularies, and methods of experts to solve complex, real-world missions.
- Representative Citizenship: We provide a curriculum that acts as both a Mirror (reflecting local identity and pioneers) and a Window (offering a view into global civilisations and biomes).
- The Power of Voice: Every unit is framed by a "Big Question" that drives scholars to investigate and debate. We recognise that this oral foundation serves as the essential blueprint for high-standard writing; if a scholar can debate a concept with precision, they can transcribe it with authority. To achieve this, we explicitly teach the Oracy Framework through our Stockport Soapbox events. In Key Stage 1, the focus is on The Oracy Arches: establishing the vital four strands of talk. Scholars are taught the Physical power of projection and stance, the Linguistic precision of specialist vocabulary, the Cognitive reach of justifying thoughts, and the Social awareness to engage and listen to an audience.
As they move into Key Stage 2, scholars apply and adapt these strands to increasingly sophisticated purposes, moving from personal discovery to complex systemic analysis. Throughout the school, children build a "Toolkit of Talk Tactics" to enrich their oral language. This ensures that every scholar leaves with the ability to celebrate, articulate, and defend their learning with a powerful, authentic voice.
The KS1 Progressive Foundations Model: The Step-by-Step Scholar
Our KS1 scholars move through a Linear Progression of Logic. To ensure every child has the Foundational Fluency required to act as an architect of their own learning, we deliver KS1 in discrete year-group cohorts. This allows for a deliberate shift from The Object to The Network:
- Year 1: The Foundation: Building upon the Roots of Learning established in the Early Years, scholars transition from open-ended exploration to purposeful observation. The focus is on Static Reality. Scholars act as "Material Spies" and "Story Seekers", learning to name, touch, and classify the raw materials of their world. We prioritise the "What" and the "Where" to build a solid substantive base.
- Year 2: The System: Once the foundations are set, Year 2 scholars move into Structural Logic. They learn how those individual objects connect to form a "Working Whole" (The Safety System, The Global Trade Route, The Heritage Keepers). We prioritise the "How" and the "Why."
The Reasoning for Linear Delivery: This sequential "priming" ensures that by the time a scholar enters our Mixed-Age KS2 setting, they are not just learners—they are scholars with an established toolkit. Having mastered 'The Foundation' and 'The System' in KS1, scholars are then promoted to the KS2 Guilds, where they apply their disciplinary agency through the Mixed-Age Mastery Model.
The Mixed-Age Mastery Model: The 1.5 Form Entry Advantage
In our KS2 1.5-form entry setting, we move beyond "split-level" teaching by adopting a Disciplinary Guild Model. We do not differentiate by thinning the curriculum; we differentiate by the depth of Disciplinary Agency.
In this collaborative ecosystem, our younger scholars act as Lead Witnesses, driving the naming and classifying of substantive facts, while our older scholars step into the role of Expert Analysts, leading the deeper investigation into mechanics and global connectivity while demonstrating a true mastery of complex skills and core knowledge.
Crucially, our older scholars actively support and scaffold their younger peers. This peer-to-peer coaching dynamic creates a dual benefit: it allows us to hold highly ambitious expectations for the younger year group, who gain vital early "priming" for the high-level analysis they will lead the following year. Concurrently, it deepens the cognitive success of the older scholars, as the act of teaching, articulating, and defending their ideas to others forces them to process concepts at a much higher level, transforming standard knowledge into genuine, sophisticated mastery.
The Heritage of Responsibility: Owning the Future
Sustainability isn't a "topic" here; it’s a responsibility. Our heritage is built on industry, and our future depends on how we regenerate it. We teach our scholars that they have ownership over their environment. By investigating the "Power and the Price" of Stockport’s past, they are tasked with fixing the problems of the present. Whether they are designing "Sponge City" drainage for Merseyway or re-wilding industrial spaces, they leave us as The Regenerators - ready to build a town that is as green as it is strong.
Experience Equity: Removing the Barriers
We believe that a child’s background should never dictate their "starting line." We close the gap by ensuring every scholar has a passport to the best experiences our region offers.
- The Level Playing Field: We provide "Primary Encounters" for all - from the telescopes of Jodrell Bank to the machinery of Quarry Bank Mill, we remove the barriers to high-level learning by making the world our classroom.
- The Specialist’s Voice: We invest in the "Specialist Code" - the powerful technical vocabulary that allows every scholar to speak with the same authority as their national peers. We don't lower the ceiling; we raise the floor, ensuring all our scholars are recognised as experts in any room.
- Universal Entitlement: We provide a foundation of scaffolded support - using sensory anchors and linguistic tools - so that every scholar can weave a limitless future. This journey is intrinsically linked to PSHE; as scholars explore the "Hardship" of the mills or the "Resilience" of the Blitz, they navigate empathy and mental health, learning that diversity is the fundamental strength of any ecosystem.
Assessment: Authentic Mastery
Throughout each unit, The Silk & Stone curriculum prioritises authentic formative assessment over the narrow constraints of traditional testing. By anchoring every unit in a "Big Question," we move away from rote recall toward a more rigorous synthesis of knowledge. The Stockport Soapbox serves as a sophisticated summative vehicle for evidence, where scholars demonstrate "mastery in motion." We believe the ability to debate, apply, and communicate complex concepts is the truest measure of academic depth.
Beyond the Narrative: Specialist Disciplines
While Silk & Stone provides the conceptual framework for the Humanities, Sciences, and the Arts (Art & DT), the full breadth of the National Curriculum—including Mathematics, RE, Computing, Music, MFL, and PE—is taught with equal rigour. These subjects are delivered as distinct, specialist disciplines, ensuring our scholars receive a balanced education that prepares them for every aspect of their future academic careers.
The Legacy Profile: The Exit Portrait
A Stockport Scholar enters secondary education with a distinct advantage. Because they have already functioned as Logic Architects and Evolutionary Analysts, they arrive with the Specialist’s Edge. They possess the "Grit" to manage complex projects and the "Voice" to lead a room.
Upon completion of the Silk & Stone curriculum, a Stockport Scholar will possess:
- Substantive Depth: A rigorous grasp of Science, History, Geography, Design & Technology, and Art.
- Disciplinary Agency: The ability to think critically, engineer solutions, and debate the big questions.
- A Grounded Identity: A deep-rooted pride in their heritage, synthesised with a sophisticated, global perspective.
They are the Architects of a Sustainable Future: Grounded In Stockport - Connected to the World
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Autumn 1 |
Autumn 2 |
Spring 1 |
Spring 2 |
Summer 1 |
Summer 2 |
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Year 1 |
The Material Spy |
The Time Traveller |
The Plant Hunter |
The Urban Ranger |
The Bee Scout |
The Story Seeker |
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Year 2 |
The Safety Detective |
The Junior Architect |
The Heritage Keeper |
The Global Explorer |
The Nature Ecologist |
The Human Engineer |
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LKS2 Cycle A |
The Field Geologist |
The Structural Analyst |
The Path Finder |
The Map Explorer |
The Urban Harvester |
The Hydrologist |
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LKS2 Cycle B |
The ‘Stoc’ Builder |
The Kinetic Engineer |
The Network Specialist |
The Undercover Apprentice |
The Eco Designer |
The Acoustic Engineer |
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UKS2 Cycle A |
The Global Trader |
The Molecular Merchant |
The Resilience Researcher |
The Pulse Auditor |
The Biome Biologist |
The Regenerator |
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UKS2 Cycle B |
The Heritage Decoder |
The Liberty Weaver |
The Evolution Analyst |
The Digital Coder |
The Gritstone Gazer |
The Legacy Maker |
