Over the last few years, the role of subject leader in primary schools has become more demanding as schools face deep dive curriculum inspections. Even teachers with limited knowledge or experience are expected to lead like specialists.

Kapow Primary supports primary school subject leaders to lead confidently and effectively. Designed to ease the pressure, our resources suit all subject leaders regardless of experience or subject expertise.

Our comprehensive support for subject leaders helps them to:

• Teach like a specialist
• Know how they are covering key guidance 
• Support members of staff across different year groups
• Prepare for scrutiny and inspections
• Understand why their subject is taught in a certain way
• Improve their subject knowledge
• Identify key areas of focus
• Understand what progression looks like in their subject

Kapow Primary’s subject leader resources

This is what Kapow Primary has developed to support subject leaders: 

Long-term plans 

Long-term plans are available for schools using standard, mixed-age and condensed versions of our schemes. These essential subject leader tools include:

• A detailed explanation of how the scheme of work provides full national curriculum coverage
• How the scheme of work is organised
• Information about Kapow Primary’s spiral curriculum design 
• Guidance on using our schemes flexibly
• Suggested long-term plans for all year groups that can easily be mapped onto primary school curriculum plans
• Suggested long-term plans for every year group with unit descriptions, as well as detailed explanations of key elements and different types of knowledge within the subject

This summarises what is included in most of our long-term plans, but there are slight variations across subjects. For example, the History plan explains the differences between substantive and disciplinary knowledge specific to History.

Ofsted deep dive toolkit 

Our deep dive toolkit includes resources for subject leaders to use in preparation for an Ofsted subject-specific inspection. It features:

• Examples of deep dive questions
• An intent, implementation and impact subject audit
• A deep dive readiness checklist
• Examples of deep dive pupil questions

Progression of knowledge and skills

This is an overview of the knowledge and skills introduced and developed in each year group across all units.  

This document explains how knowledge and skills can be built within each strand so they meet key stage expectations. There are alternative versions for schools that are following our condensed and mixed-age plans.

Subject leader toolkits

As we continue to develop our schemes, we are creating subject leader toolkits to help teachers organise and reduce their workload. The subject leader toolkits include:

• Pupil voice questionnaires
• Knowledge audits for teachers
• Subject audits to prepare for Ofsted
• Subject action-plan templates
• Other subject-specific support

Subject leader toolkits are available in the following subjects, with more coming soon:

Art and design, Computing, Design and technology, French, Geography, History, Music and RSE & PSHE. 

National curriculum coverage 

Our curriculum coverage documents give an overview of the national curriculum attainment targets, detailing which units are working towards which targets. This information is also available on individual lesson plans, but it’s useful for subject leaders to have it all collated in one document.

Teacher videos

Many of our lessons feature videos for teachers outlining the knowledge needed to teach each lesson and demonstrating how to teach it. 

An example of our French phonics videos designed to support teachers to teach pronunciation with confidence.

Incorporating videos in this way provides integrated CPD that is immediately applicable and easy to access. Subject leaders can use these videos to upskill themselves and other staff, including non-teachers or cover teachers who may be taking lessons. Subject leaders can also use the videos to deliver staff training. 

Assessment spreadsheets 

Our assessment spreadsheets allow primary school teachers to track individual pupil progress across every learning objective. They are beneficial for subject leaders as they show progression across the school and identify gaps in attainment.

Other assessment resources

Kapow Primary schemes include a quiz at the end of each unit and a knowledge catcher to evaluate pupil understanding. These assessment resources are helpful for a subject leader to assess the effectiveness of teaching. Press play on the video below for more information about our unit quizzes and knowledge catchers.

Knowledge organisers

All of our units have a ready-made knowledge organiser.

Examples of History knowledge organisers.

These visual summaries of key facts and vocabulary help children to retain subject knowledge; they are most effective when used at the beginning of a unit and referred back to regularly. A subject leader can guide other staff on using knowledge organisers in their subject. 

Webinars

At Kapow Primary, we regularly present subject-specific and curriculum-based webinars featuring expert guest speakers. 

Our webinars are free to attend for anyone who registers, and Kapow Primary users can access the complete back catalogue of webinar recordings on our website. Sign up to our mailing list for notifications of our upcoming webinars and more.

Resource lists 

Our subject resource lists are equipment lists of essential and optional resources for each subject.  

Intent, implementation and impact statement

This statement explains our curriculum design covering:

Intent – what is taught and why

Implementation – what it looks like in practice

Impact – what the outcomes will be

This document helps subject leaders to justify why their subject is taught in a particular way and can be used to create school-specific intent, implementation and impact statements for your subject.

Subject leader Facebook group

In our dedicated subject leader Facebook group, subject leaders can ask questions and share ideas.  

Our resources help subject leaders teach and lead like specialists, even with limited subject knowledge. 

You can access our subject leader resources on the Kapow Primary website, either in the subject planning section of each subject or by using the search tool.  

All of our content is being continually added to and updated, including our subject leader support. We hope you find it helpful.