Curriculum
The school bases its curriculum upon the framework provided by the National Curriculum, National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies and Early Learning Goals.
Children of all age groups study Mathematics, English, Science, Information, Communication and Design Technology, History, Geography, Religious Education, Music, Art and Physical Education.
Teachers organise the children in their class in a variety of ways depending on the activity planned, at a level appropriate for them. Junior age children are set by ability for Maths and English. In this way the children may be challenged by working in depth on a specific aspect of curriculum with a larger group of like-minded children.
The weekly time spent by the children on the curriculum is as follows:
KS1 22 hours
KS2 23.5 hours
Some aspects of the children's work will arise from cross curricular links i.e. health education, personal and social education, citizenship, drugs awareness program and road safety. Literacy and numeracy skills are often consolidated within other subjects.
English
English is taught through the National Literacy Strategy. Reading is carefully monitored and children are encouraged to read for understanding and pleasure. As their reading skills develop, children learn to read for information from the wealth of books organised as class collections or centrally based in the school library. All children follow a systematic synthetic phonics programme, which supports both their reading and spelling. Handwriting and spelling are taught simultaneously and cursive writing is introduced as soon as possible.
Children are encouraged to develop their spoken language through whole class, paired, and group discussion, as well as through drama activities such as role-play. Personal writing forms an important part of the subject and this takes many forms: factual, imaginative, descriptive, note taking and poetry. Numeracy Our Mathematics teaching has a strong practical bias and is designed to build understanding into the acquisition of basic computational skills and mathematical concepts. The children follow a systematic course of study based upon the National Numeracy Strategy. A variety of teachers' resources are used rather than one published scheme. We consider it essential that children know their multiplication tables and simple number bonds and very often ask parents to help reinforce this teaching at home. Nearly all our measurement in mathematics uses the Metric System. It would help if parents would adopt metric measures when working and speaking to their children. Science
In Science teaching, we aim to balance the development of scientific skills with the acquisition of a core of knowledge. Children are encouraged to explore the exciting biological, chemical and physical nature of the world in a practical, hands on way. They have regular opportunities to ask questions, plan fair tests, make predictions, record results and draw conclusions. The skills acquired in other areas of the curriculum, particularly in Maths, ICT and English can be applied and practised in Science activities. Children usually work in small groups to facilitate critical questioning, reasoning and logical thinking. Information Communication Technology (ICT)
Our computer suite is used to teach ICT skills to all the children each week. Children develop their word processing, multimedia, database, spreadsheet, control and internet skills as they progress through the school. The children use these skills acquired across the curriculum, which benefits the children by reinforcing and extending the skills. Laptops are available for use in classrooms to help with cross curricular use, for example research on the internet for humanities, or creating graphs in science. As well as pcs and laptops, children have the opportunity to use digital cameras, sensors and simple robots. ICT
Religious Education
As a Church of England Voluntary Aided School, we seek to develop attitudes that are Christian in nature. Through Bible stories and stories of good people, we try to develop an appreciation of the influence that each of us has on the people we come into contact with daily; of the enormity of need that exists in our world and our ability to help. We follow the Christian calendar, particularly celebrating Christmas, Easter and Harvest Festival. It is also important for the children to understand the history behind and beliefs of other faiths and this is achieved through the Scheme of Work for Religious Education.
Art
The curriculum aims to develop children's understanding of colour, line, shape, form, texture, tone and pattern. This is achieved through working with a variety of media such as pastels, paint, fabric and clay and learning a repertoire of technical skills. Studying the work of famous artists also forms a significant part of the art curriculum.
Design Technology
Pupils are taught to develop their design and technology capabilities through a combination of knowledge and designing and making. Design and Technology is about challenges, the exploration of ideas and seeing projects develop from start to finish. Children are provided with a balanced, stimulating and challenging programme of learning experiences. DT Humanities
History and Geography are becoming increasingly more linked and are therefore often known to the children as topic lessons, where skills from both subject areas can be linked. The skills are taught in as many cross-curricular ways as possible, making the topic more exciting and interesting. Specific Geography skills taught include; mapping; using sources of information; learning specifics about the area of study, such as the names of important rivers and mountains and comparing places. History skills taught include; being able to convey information in a variety of ways, thinking about ways in which the past is represented and handling artefacts from the period of study. Over the seven years at the school, children will develop a sense of chronology. The topics covered are very varied and include
Physical Education
We aim to develop confidence and physical skills as the children grow stronger. They are introduced to a variety of games and athletic activities. When children begin school, much of the work takes place in the hall, which is fully equipped. Outside we use the playgrounds and playing field to teach skills with large and small balls and teamwork in such games as netball, football, hockey, rounders and athletics. We are also very lucky to have the community facilities of the tennis and basketball courts, which we can use for these games. The adventure trail is used to develop balance, agility, confidence and good fun. We have school teams for netball, football, tag rugby, Kwik Cricket and athletics where they participate, often with great success, in the local schools� leagues. Sport as an extra-curricular activity is very popular with the children.
Music
Class music lessons involve singing and exploring sounds and rhythmic patterns, using tuned and untuned percussive instruments. We aim to develop abilities and interests in making and appreciating music. Tuition in violin, cello, flute and guitar is offered, which are fee paying. We have a school choir, open to all juniors, which contributes to events both within the school and the wider community.
Early Years
Play is a central tool for learning; it is a key way in which young children learn with enjoyment and challenge. Structured play where the learning outcome has been clearly identified through careful planning and support is very important in the foundation stage classroom.
At
The foundation stage currciulum is orgainised into the following areas: