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The KS1 & KS2 Curriculum

The National Curriculum

Our pupil's experience a curriculum that meets both the needs of the National Curriculum as well as our own school curriculum. The structure of our curriculum content is provided by the Dimensions Curriculum.

The National Curriculum is delivered to all pupils in Years One to Six.

The new National Curriculum brought in at the start of September 2014, is written so that children have to cover some objectives over the course of a two-year period and some objectives over a single year period.

The ethos of the new curriculum is embedding depth and mastery of the learning objectives. Therefore, assessing children's depth of knowledge and ability to apply this knowledge into other contexts is now every school's priority.

Assessment of these objectives is now no longer determined by a central system of levels determined by the Government. Instead, it focuses on:

  • Basic Level of Understanding
  • Advancing Level of Understanding
  • Deep Level of Understanding

English

English is taught every morning. For our younger children, this is in the form of phonics. We use the Read, Write, Inc system of phonics. Please watch the short video below for more information about the way in which we teach phonics.

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From Year 2, we follow the Read Write Inc. spelling programme, using the online Oxford Owl resources. For spellings, children are taught within their own year groups. 

Our reading scheme is structured around the Read Write Inc Bookbag books and supplemented with Bug Club and Big Cat.

Higher up the school, we develop the reading and writing skills of our children in order that they can write fluently and with interesting detail; that they have a highly developed vocabulary and a love of writing. The aim is to have readers with excellent phonic knowledge and skills and children who can read with fluency and accuracy across a wide range of texts across the curriculum. We want to motivate our children to read both for study and for pleasure. We use Jane Considine's unit plans for our Writing lessons. These centre around a book or film clip, providing an engaging inspiration for writing, whilst developing children's grammatical understanding and their awareness of vocabulary.

We use a whole-school approach to improving letter formation and handwriting. The scheme that we use is called Kinetic Letters. It is based on ensuring the children have the strength in their bodies, arms, wrists, hands and fingers to prepare them for the skill of handwriting.

Pencil grip is key to children developing the automaticity to write longer pieces of writing over longer periods of time. This video demonstrates the correct pencil grip.

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Maths

During our daily mathematics lessons, we teach a broad range of skills in using and applying mathematics. The children are taught a wide range of mathematical vocabulary and develop fluency in performing written and mental calculations and mathematical techniques. We want the children to show initiative in solving problems in a wide range of contexts, including the new and unusual and to embrace the value of learning from mistakes and false starts.

Science

We strive to nurture pupils’ natural curiosity, helping them to develop enquiring minds that can understand and explain how the world works and have a desire to change it for the better. Science is taught as a key focus within a topic throughout the academic year, ensuring there is coverage of substantive knowledge (the scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding) and disciplinary knowledge (working scientifically).

PSHE & Citizenship

Personal, social and health education (PSHE) and Citizenship helps to give

Children have followed the Paws b programme to support their mental health and well-being. You can find out more here.

RE

RE is taught, in line with Cambridgeshire Guidelines.

On each class page, there is information related to the term's curriculum focus. This information includes the curriculum content, homework and classroom routines for the term. This information is also displayed within each classroom.

Open Classroom evenings held each half-term, enable all pupils and families to view classroom work and learning environments.

Please see individual class pages for our Long Term Plans