Curriculum

The core subjects are:-

• English
• Maths

The foundation subjects are:-

• Science
• Computing    
• Design and Technology                          
• History 
• Geography
• Music
• Art 
• PE
• Modern Foreign Language (French)
• PSHE

English and Maths are generally taught in the mornings; however, we aim to teach in a cross-curricular way making links between the subjects to make the curriculum relevant to the children. Each term, each class will have a theme. Information about the theme will be sent to parents at the beginning of the term. The theme often has a question as a title for example: What makes our bodies amazing?  Each term the class will have a WOW event which may either be a visit or special occasions and parents are often invited into school to see what is happening. Our two year topic cycle can be found in the curriculum plans below this article.

All children will learn a foreign language which is French.

In school, we teach phonics using the Letters and Sounds programme called Little Wandle.  As children move through the stages of acquiring phonics, they practise by reading texts which are entirely decodable for them.

Once children have a secure knowledge of letter/sound correspondences and can blend words confidently, they access our reading scheme which has books from 'Big Cat' and is designed to give children experience of a variety of reading genres. There are fiction and non-fiction books within each level. In addition, children access Big Cat e-books at school and at home from a personalised selection made by the teacher. Children will also have an additional book to share from the classroom or library. All children are encouraged to select books from the classroom, library or home to share with their parents to encourage a love of reading.

Once children can read fluently and with a good understanding, they self-select books for independent reading from the class library or from home. We continue to teach phonics and spelling rules throughout the school to ensure that children's spelling and reading continues to develop.

We aim for all of our children to achieve their best and set them challenging targets.  

We hold a curriculum workshop twice a year for parents when we will update parents on new things in school or tell parents about how we teach specific areas in school.

We use the WhiteRose approach for teaching Maths which ensure children develop a level of fluency and reasoning techniques in order to master each mathematical concept.  

Religious Education

Religious Education as outlined in the Local Authority’s Agreed Syllabus (Awareness , Mystery and Values) is provided for all pupils as part of the curriculum.

Children learn about the major world religions. We aim to develop their understanding of world faiths and enable them to ask questions about what people believe, why they believe and how it affects their actions.  Children are encouraged to ask questions and explore faith in all of its forms.

Personal, Health and Social Education and Citizenship

Children will explore issues and learn about a healthy life style as part of the PSHE and the Citizenship curriculum.

We use the Jigsaw Scheme as a basis for the curriculum supplemented by a wide variety of materials that support us in keeping our children safe and healthy and encourage a healthy lifestyle.

Marking and feedback

Children need to learn from the work that they have done and they are given high quality feedback on their work.

This is often verbally with a note made of the discussion points with children and is supported by full marking of children's work.  We use the green for growth, tickled pink method so that children know which parts of their work are really good and meet the learning objective of the lesson and which parts are underlined in green and need improvement. Older children may also have a pink or green comment about their work which supports them in developing their work further. Children are then given the chance to improve their work or respond to comments. We encourage children to edit their work and respond to the feedback the have been given. Often children will use their 'purple pen of progress' to do this.

Special weeks or days

We often have special days and weeks.

This year we are celebrating: Mark-making week, Remembrance Week, Black History Month, Holocaust Day (UKS2) Well-being week, Safer-Online Week, Anti-Bullying week, Green day, World Book Day, STEM week and Children in Need day to name just some of the special days.