Our School Curriculum

We follow the National Curriculum key stages 1 and 2 framework document (first published September 2013 and updated May 2015) and the Statutory framework for the early year’s foundation stage (first published March 2017). To read the full documents, please click on the appropriate link below.

Our Reading Curriculum

Books are the heart of our whole school curriculum. We teach ‘word reading’ through phonics, following the Sounds Write phonics scheme. All children are taught comprehension using a ‘reading for inference’ strategy which develops vocabulary and a knowledge of the world to build deeper understanding of texts. This is complemented by reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and non-fiction to establish an appreciation and love of reading, and to gain knowledge across the curriculum.

Our Writing Curriculum

We put quality children’s literature at the heart of our English curriculum and in every classroom, writing is taught through sharing and discussing great reading books. Children love stories and we use stories along with creative teaching to support and develop high quality writing and a whole school love of reading.

From books come a rich vocabulary, key themes, diversity, problems to solve, a deeper understanding of our social and emotional selves along with the opportunity for our children to build Cultural Capital – the essential knowledge they need to become educated citizens; the best that has been thought and said in order to develop a passion for human creativity and achievement. Aligned with the National Curriculum, we follow the English the framework and continually promote high standards of language and literacy.             

Our Mathematics Curriculum

We believe that mathematics is an adventure for children (and adults) to get creative, make mistakes, ask questions, explore a wide range of mathematical problems and excel! We broadly follow Active Learn’s Power Maths which was created especially for UK primary schools, and aligned with the new National Curriculum.

We teach mathematics using a mastery approach designed to spark curiosity and excitement and nurture confidence in maths. Our lessons are carefully sequenced to support children’s understanding of core concepts and build their mathematical confidence. Each lesson is divided into evidence-based sections that take children on a journey through discovery, sharing of ideas, scaffolded practice, independent practice and reflection. It embeds growth mindset and problem solving to equip children with a deep conceptual understanding and a passion for mathematics.

Our Wider School Curriculum

It is a very exciting time for us as we are currently developing our wider school curriculum.

We are building a story focused curriculum where books and stories lead the learning - for our children, the curriculum is a narrative. We aim to find stories throughout the curriculum to provide context to the learning, be it Science, Geography, History, Art or PE. This concept is grounded in cognitive science which has shown that the mind best understands and remembers facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric such as a narrative. This way we ensure that information moves from the short-term into long-term memory.

We aim to teach children to be active readers and thinkers so they can ask questions, develop vocabulary and understand different perspectives - Children want demanding learning and so we are designing our curriculum to provide opportunities for children to solve problems, to provoke curiosity and build self-confidence.

We are building a curriculum to create meaning and purpose. We aim to ensure every child has the opportunity to perform, share and speak with an audience about their learning. In this way, their learning has meaning and purpose. We aim to build children’s memories of expressing creatively and working with others collaboratively to build events and display their achievements.

Like many other primary schools, our schemes of work and long-term curriculum maps are currently under development. We are using our curriculum intentions to design a rich and deep curriculum for each subject, and we hope to share these with you shortly.