Lyfta impact: Curriculum, learning and engagement at Shaw Primary Academy

Students from Shaw Primary school

"Lyfta has been instrumental in ensuring that our children see diversity, and know that there are people in the world, like them, who are successful."

AMY NEWLAND

In an interview with one of our trainers at Lyfta, Amy Newland (Curriculum Lead at Shaw Primary Academy) explained her experience with using the platform and the 'incredible' impact it has had on her students and how this is helping young people see that there is 'more to the world'.

Beyond maths and English: Supporting students after Covid

Like many schools, over the last few years, Shaw Primary Academy has needed to focus on helping many of their students catch up in English and maths. Although progress has been made in these areas, the impact of Covid is still felt in many ways. For example, Amy shared with us how she had some concerns about the upcoming secondary transition for the older students and how Lyfta has been used as part of a strategy to better prepare students for thriving in both their learning and the outside world:

"My Y6s are not ready for secondary school, they missed so many opportunities to learn, share, and collaborate. Lyfta has been instrumental in helping us catch up on that."

AMY NEWLAND

Vocabulary and oracy: how Shaw Primary Academy has been using Lyfta

In previous years Shaw Primary Academy has been using the well-known "star of the week" method of celebrating their children. However, that method has been reviewed and changed in the light of a reconsidered, more inclusive curriculum.

Each week the school now chooses a Lyfta assembly and uses key terms and themes supported by the different storyworlds - for example 'resilience'. This keyword then becomes that week's key learning behaviour and teachers then award the children for showing these behaviours.

Storyworld Everyone has a Story which teaches resilience

Amy shared how this has developed the students' vocabulary significantly, as they are now regularly using words like resilience, adaptation, community. This whole-school pedagogical and curricular strategy has allowed the students to reach a higher level vocabulary where using these new terms becomes 'second nature'. This process in turn has helped students find their voice and better articulate their perspectives and learning.

Crucially, this approach has meant that all students have a better chance of being heard, recognising their own learning and having that recognised by others in turn. Amy shared with us how this different approach has supported more meaningful student engagement and inclusion and cited examples of students who had also grown in confidence in terms of oracy:

"What has been discovered is that the school is celebrating all students …Again, we are showcasing student successes in a more meaningful way."

AMY NEWLAND

Lyfta supporting signposting curricular intent and deep dives

Using Lyfta to 'bring the outside world in' has enabled teachers to have more clarity about curriculum intent and has been one of the tools and methodologies for enacting whole school values and visions. When asked what advice she might give other teachers new to Lyfta to facilitate more 'deep dives', Amy talked a lot about the importance of being clear about curriculum intent, and shared how they had been using Lyfta in this process.

"Shaw Primary Academy's curriculum intent is about celebrating cultural diversity (inside and outside of the school) and aspiring to be more. Lyfta has been a resource that has supported this intent, for example when subject leads are asked questions by external visitors and inspectors about their curriculum objectives, they are answering ‘And Lyfta does that for us…. And Lyfta helps us with that'."

AMY NEWLAND

Lyfta supporting student engagement with their learning

When asked 'do you have any standout memories or wow moments you've seen in your classes whilst using Lyfta?', Amy shared how the use of Lyfta in assemblies has been particularly impactful and that there has yet to be any Lyfta content that the students have not liked!

"The assemblies. When the children go to these ‘other worlds'... they are so engaged, so excited to go. With our Lyfta assemblies, they are never dull or quiet, because the children are so excited to learn about a new person. And it's often a type of person that they have never seen before. And that's what is so lovely about it. It's those moments, the ‘where are we going today?!' it's those words."

AMY NEWLAND

Curriculum and real-life relevance

Andrea in storyworld Andrea's Yard

Shaw Primary Academy's year 6s (ages 10-11) have been using Lyfta to support their curricular topic of South America. Lyfta has lots of content from different countries in South America (for example, Peru, Argentina, Brazil and Curaçao) and Amy shared with us how storyworlds like 'Andrea's Yard' had been used to enable a deeper dive into the topic. We learned how Lyfta has enabled a deeper level of engagement with a topic theme, going beyond geography and place to include important different ways of living, working, being, and sometimes thinking in these countries.

"Lyfta doesn't make us ‘tolerate' other cultures, it allows us to understand and celebrate other cultures. And that's how it should be..."

AMY NEWLAND

Lyfta in the classroom

Amy also shared with us how some of the Lyfta storyworlds have helped the curriculum be more inclusive of the students' lives and cultural diversity. For example, when exploring the Dinnertime 360 storyworlds series, students enjoyed looking at the different dinners and dishes being eaten and then went on to share the different foods and meals they had at home.

Conclusion

Towards the end of the discussion, Amy shared how Lyfta had been supporting staff as well as students in the school in different ways.

"What I am seeing across my team is that it is making us become better teachers, it's helping us plan differently… We have found that Lyfta has boosted us in supporting the whole curriculum. It has opened my eyes to being more of a creative teacher, which is great."

AMY NEWLAND

Amy Newland - Curriculum Lead at Shaw Primary Academy

Amy also shared how Lyfta gave everyone 'hope' and how the school also wanted to find a way of including parents in some of this shared learning too. They are also planning to use Lyfta more to support the English curriculum in the school.

We are looking forward to hearing more about Shaw Primary's learning adventures with Lyfta, and are grateful to Amy for having shared these reflections so that we can share on to the wider Lyfta community.

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