Skip to content ↓

Curriculum Overview

 

Children in Reception follow the statutory requirements of The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Curriculum. In Key Stages 1 and 2, pupils follow the National Curriculum. The whole school adopts the RE curriculum ‘Come and See’ which follows the Religious Education Curriculum Directory for Catholic Schools and Colleges in England and Wales. We strive to provide quality access to the whole curriculum so that they can learn effectively, make progress and attain levels in line with, or better than, expectations nationally. We set challenging but realistic and attainable targets in order that our children may achieve this. Cross curricular opportunities are key to this.

Learning takes place in a stimulating environment supported by a variety of experiences which include the full use of the whole school environment, educational visits and the expertise and knowledge of the wider community including:

  • Extra curricular clubs
  • Themed curriculum weeks
  • Extended schools provision
  • Links with other primary schools
  • Residential visits
  • Visiting authors
  • Additional music opportunities
  • Links with feeder secondary schools

Mathematics

In Years 1-6, we follow Maths Mastery, which allows for depth of understanding in the key concepts of Maths. Maths teaching is enhanced across the school through the use of regular maths meetings, which allow for rehearsal and consolidation of Maths Facts.

English

Reading

Children are allocated and work through colour banded books until they have a sufficient level of reading.. Within each band, there are a range of fiction and non-fiction books from a wide range of reading schemes and non-scheme books. Children are also encouraged to read for pleasure and can access a wider range of books appropriate to each child’s ability.

Where appropriate reading objectives are taught in English lessons and quality texts are used to demonstrate good examples and inspire children’s own writing.  In addition, children in Years 1-6 receive through two reading workshop sessions.

We encourage children to read for at least 10 minutes a day as part of the school’s homework provision.

Phonics

Phonics is taught in focused sessions daily in Reception, Years 1 and Year 2. Our teachers follow the National Guidance for phonics teaching from Song of Sounds. Children are taught in ability groups across the year groups to enable focused development of their phonics knowledge and application.

Writing

Within each term, the inclusion of a high quality text is used to challenge, enthuse and engage children.  Our priority it to expose children to a range of quality texts and authors including classics and new releases. Where possible, these link to current topics, to enhance learning across the curriculum.

There is a clear progression in the teaching of writing, which includes the familiarisation of the text type through reading, the identification of structure and language features, modelled writing, shared writing, supported composition, guided writing and independent writing.  Progression of teaching writing includes exploring features, planning, drafting, assessing and editing.  Throughout a writing unit, a success criterion of skills is created in collaboration with the teacher and pupils.  The success criteria may be displayed on the board for children to refer to or attached in books to allow children and teachers to assess against.  This assessment is then used by teachers and pupils to set short-term targets.

PE & Music

P.E. and music are taught by specialist teachers to allow the children’s skills to be developed.

EYFS Curriculum

Learning through play is a key part of our Early Years unit. We use children’s interests as a starting point to plan our continuous provision, inform our topics and provide stimulating learning opportunities. We believe that through play children learn to adapt, negotiate, communicate, discuss, investigate and question. As such, we believe it important for the adults to engage in this child initiated play; observing, modelling, facilitating and extending the play based learning. Children take part in learning times, which occur twice a day and allow children to free flow, choosing their own learning within the unit.