Our Curriculum

Intent

At Christchurch Primary School we pride ourselves in offering our pupils a broad, rich and varied curriculum. Our vision and values are at the core of everything we do and underpin our teaching and learning. We know that children learn best when they are offered exciting, engaging and immersive opportunities and this is fostered through our approach. We believe that learning should be fun, interactive and focused on children's own personal needs. We are committed to raising standards and providing the best education for every pupil in our school.

We provide a creative and challenging curriculum that is tailored to pupils needs, interests and experiences. Our staff work hard to make learning relevant and fun and our pupils thrive as a result. We provide our pupils with stimulating and awe-inspiring experiences. We believe that our pupils learn best when they experience ‘real’ learning and are immersed in experiences that will enrich their minds. We offer our pupils an exciting range of trips, visits and activities that provide unique opportunities and motivate learning.

We are committed to developing the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of each child enabling them to thrive and equipping them with the skills to become positive, thoughtful and caring citizens in school and in the wider world. As a school we have a long-standing commitment to Creative Arts. We believe in giving our pupils every opportunity to express themselves and perform. This experience not only serves to enrich the curriculum but helps to develop confidence and make learning more enjoyable and memorable.

We want all our pupils to be outstanding learners; to be happy, take risks and enjoy all the opportunities that our school offers.

Implementation

We structure and plan the curriculum to ensure that good practice remains central, equality of opportunity is ensured and we integrate the requirements National Curriculum into our topics, projects and subject teaching.

We have formulated a series of guidelines and schemes of work designed to aid the delivery of the National Curriculum. These guidelines are used by staff when planning both over the whole year and termly. It enables us to ensure a balance of learning from Nursery to Year 6.

Each term every year group chooses an overall theme/project, divided into units of work, to deliver the curriculum. Each theme/project is planned and developed using the National Curriculum, as well as school policies and guidelines. From the termly plan staff prepare weekly timetables for the class to deliver concepts and skills. The teacher prepares differentiated activities for each of the subjects and through on-going assessment and record keeping, addresses the needs of all the children. Yearly plans are published on the schools website. 

Our approach is founded on the belief that the curriculum should be child-centred, based on practical, hands-on, concrete experiences, so that each child can build his/her knowledge, skills, concepts and attitudes through understanding.

We assess where each child is when s/he enters school at whatever key stage. We begin from that point and take the child through the curriculum at a pace appropriate to individual needs, so that each may be offered an equal opportunity to achieve their full potential.

Our aim is to deliver a broad, balanced, relevant and exciting curriculum which is designed to develop a love of learning which will last a lifetime and cover the physical, spiritual, moral, social, aesthetic, literate, mathematic and scientific development of our pupils.

Our classes are organised in mixed ability groups usually according to age, and children normally remain in the same class for a year. At Key Stage 1 much of the teaching in school is done on an individual or small group basis in order to accommodate the widely differing abilities and stages of development of the children within a class, but class teaching is not neglected as it contributes to the community spirit of the class and school. We do, however, set for Maths from Year 2 onwards and for English and Maths in Years 5 and 6.

Provision is made for additional help to be given to individual chil­dren where this is considered to be beneficial.

We use a thematic topic based approach with younger children as a vehicle to teach all areas of the curriculum and develop basic skills.

This approach enables older children to become more independent learners – undertaking research, presenting investigations, and setting personal targets. 

As teachers we strive to improve the teaching and learning in our school through a process of on-going personal evaluation. In the same way we believe that the children should develop the skill to evaluate their own performance against agreed success criteria leading to the setting of achievable targets designed to help them move on their learning. This approach is a way of developing lifelong learning skills that can be adapted to any area at any stage of life.

Subject teaching for the oldest children offers the opportunity to study a subject in its own right to a greater depth.

It is essential that we also teach Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education, and seek to ensure that cross-curricular issues of global and environmental education and equality of opportunity are included in all topics as part of our aim to offer a curriculum that goes beyond the confines of the National Curriculum to educate the whole child.

Evaluation of themes/projects and subject areas taught ensure that breadth and balance are maintained and that all curriculum areas are covered. It is also necessary at times to teach an aspect of a sub­ject area outside a unit of work, to give the aspect further emphasis and depth. We all have high expectations of the children; we give them praise and encouragement; we aim to deliver a full curriculum which is aimed to develop the whole child. The emphasis is always upon what the individual child can do.

The Headteacher, leadership team, senior staff and curriculum subject leaders undertake a programme of regular monitoring of the planning, delivery and organisation of learning across the school.

The teacher is continuously assessing his/her children as a natural, integrated part of his/her practice: his/her intentions are to sum up where a child is (formative), so as to plan where to take the child on next, and to diagnose any difficulties (diagnostic). Detailed records are kept. At the end of Key Stages 1 and 2 all children undergo the national SATs (Standard Assessment Tasks) (summative) and results are reported to parents.

Parents are invited to discuss their child’s progress three times a year in the autumn, spring and the summer terms. At Year 2 and in Key Stage 2 the spring term meeting allows parents an opportunity to meet their child’s set teachers, whilst autumn and summer meetings are with the class teachers. Also at the end of each year a written report will be sent to parents. Full records are kept on all aspects of your child’s school life, and are available for parents to see. If you do wish to see any of these, please contact the Headteacher.

Impact

We have high aspirations for every pupil and it is our aim that each child is equipped with the skills, knowledge and confidence to independently take the next step in their educational journey. 

 a)   Foundation Stage.   At the end of Reception, based on classroom observations, a Foundation Stage profile will be completed for every child in line with statutory requirements. This helps teachers plan appropriately for each child’s next phase of learning.

b)  Key Stage 1.   At the end of Key Stage 1, children will be assessed as part of the Statutory Assessment Tests (S.A.T.S.) (summative). This will take place in their last term of Year 2, within their normal classroom environ­ment, and will consist of assessment by their own teacher and a varie­ty of tasks externally set, but implemented by their teacher. 

During the summer term, over a week specified by the Department for Education, children in Year 1 are given a phonics screening check to assess their progress in this aspect of reading. 

Parents are informed of their child’s results.

c)   In order to ensure progression in learning and the development of skills, data from end of Key Stage 1 assessments is used to plan each child’s work as they begin Key Stage 2 programmes of study.

d)  Key Stage 2.  At the end of Key Stage 2, following the timetable for a week specified by the Department of Education, children in Year 6 sit statutory national tests in English and Mathematics. Levels achieved by the children in the tests, together the teacher’s assessment across the subject for the year, are reported to parents.