Stocks Green Primary School

Curriculum Intent Statement

Our school motto ’Learning to Live, Living to Learn’ is very much at the core of our curriculum. We aim to provide a curriculum that equips pupils with life skills for the future at all levels. Our curriculum is based on enquiry. We enable our learners to begin each lesson with a question to discovery the answer to during the session.

Our curriculum is designed to:

• recognise children’s prior learning
• provide first hand learning experiences
• promote creativity
• make connections between subjects and real life
• Promote safe, equal, caring and enjoyable relationships and discussing real-life situations appropriate to the age and stage of pupils.
• encourage the children to develop interpersonal skills
• build resilience and become creative, critical thinkers.
• understand their own strengths and areas for development and know how to face challenges
• promote responsibility for learning and future success.
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We intend that all pupils achieve this through a curriculum which is designed to be investigative and enquiring. Teachers strive to achieve the highest standards from learners, in order for them to be exceptionally well prepared for the next stage in their education and their future careers. 

The ability to learn is underpinned by the teaching of knowledge, skills, concepts and values.  This involves developing learning attitudes and resilience – acquiring an understanding that we learn from occasional mistakes made. Teaching the skills of interacting with others, questioning, reasoning and explaining help to create a positive attitude to learning.

Our Curriculum

Our curriculum is cohesive and progressive, with knowledge and skills that are built upon year-on-year, but is also flexible enough to ensure that it remains relevant and stimulating and has the opportunity to reflect the context of Hildenborough within the wider world. Through this curriculum, teachers inspire children to develop a love of learning.

Implementation

Our curriculum incorporates the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum and other experiences and opportunities, which best meet the learning and developmental needs of the children in our school. We aim for the curriculum to provide children with memorable experiences, in addition to diverse and rich opportunities from which children can learn and develop a range of transferable skills.  As part of our curriculum and wider opportunities, we aim to provide the children with necessary cultural capital to be successful citizens.  Each individual subject is implemented in such a way as to enable the greatest impact upon long term retrieval of key knowledge and skills.  This is tailored differently depending on the subject taught.

Accessibility

Our approach to the curriculum complies with our duties under the Equality Act 2010 and SEND Code of Practice 2014, to ensure that all learning opportunities are accessible for those with special educational needs and disabilities. We set out our plan to extend all student's participation in the curriculum in our Accessibility Plan.  This can be found here. 

Impact

The innovative practice across the school provides a strong foundation and opportunities for children to collaborate and develop social skills both indoors and out. The curriculum design ensures that the needs of individual and small groups of children can be met through quality first teaching, supported by targeted, proven interventions where appropriate. In this way it can be seen to impact in a very positive way on children’s outcomes.

We deliver lessons where pupils feel safe and participation is encouraged by using a variety of teaching approaches – this develops critical thinking and relationship skills. Through giving pupils opportunities to reflect on values and influences (such as from peers, media, faith and culture) we shape their attitudes to relationships and nurture respect for different points of view.

Enjoyment of the curriculum promotes achievement, confidence and good behaviour. Children feel safe to try new things. High quality visits and visitors to the school enhance the curriculum and provide opportunities for writing for a purpose.

Children have opportunities to share their learning with each other, their parents and carers and other learners through school-based exhibitions, performances, competitions and events involving other schools. Developing their confidence, independence and motivation as learners and their sense of responsibility as future citizens is embedded at the heart of all our teaching and learning.

Assessment and Feedback

Our school considers accurate and focused assessment as the cornerstone of high quality teaching, as it allows learning to be planned and taught accurately as well as meeting the needs of the requirements of the children and ensuring high levels of expectation. The intention of our curriculum is to not create unnecessary work load for our teachers. This includes planning and assessment.

The culture at Stocks Green Primary School is one of continually using what we know in order to move on children’s learning. This formative assessment happens all the time. Skilled teachers and teaching assistants will use this information to ‘zap gaps’ and to provide additional challenge for children as required and appropriate. This is most effective when done immediately and at the point of learning.

The School’s Feedback and Assessment Policy sets out further guidance on assessment against the National Curriculum.  This can be accessed here.

The Stocks Green Primary School Curriculum

At Stocks Green Primary School we understand the importance of our children knowing more, remembering more and doing more. With this in mind, we teach the children the knowledge they require, ensuring they have opportunities for the retrieval of knowledge and the chance to apply new skills during their learning. Below are our progressions of knowledge and skills for each of the subject areas taught in school as well as other supporting documentation for each subject area, such as curriculum policies.

Reading

Writing

Maths

Science

Computing

History

The school is currently further developing its bespoke history curriculum.  The school has started to focus on the use of history 'lenses' as a vehicle to revisit key concepts over time.  You can see the 'lenses' through which we view history below as well as our 'sequence of learning' document which highlights the links between prior knowledge and that currently studied.

Geography

Physical Education (PE)

Art

Design and Technology

Music

Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE)

Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE)

Religious Education (RE)

Modern Foreign Languages (MFL)

Through our curriculum, we give all our children the opportunity to experience and take part in a range of events to help them develop their wider experiences of the world (cultural capital). These events change yearly and in the past our children have had the chance to experience things, such as visits to religious buildings, trips to the local theatre, residential visits, working with musicians, supporting local and national charities, taking part in local sporting events as well as visiting the Houses of Parliament.

EYFS Curriculum

Below is the statutory EYFS curriculum document from the Department of Education. For information about what our EYFS children are learning this year can be found on the EYFS webpage of our website here.

Phonics

At Stocks Green Primary School we believe that learning to read and establishing a love of books is an essential part of being a literacy learner. Therefore, we value the importance phonics has in the development of early reading and early writing. We deliver highly effective phonics lessons within Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage One via daily lessons. Children in Key Stage Two continue to be supported with their basic acquisition of phonics where necessary. Phonics is also used to underpin the teaching of spelling in Key Stage One and Key Stage Two.

Our phonics objectives are:

• To have timetabled, daily phonics lessons in EYFS, Year One and Year Two.

• To develop a good knowledge of phonemes and graphemes.
• To be able to blend phonemes to decode (read) a word.
• To be able to segment and blend to be able to spell a word.
• To be able to transfer the skills from phonics into everyday learning, particularly writing and spelling.
• To be confident with segmenting and blending pseudo (alien / made up) words in preparation for the statutory Key Stage One phonics screen.

From the Spring Term 2022, the Department for Education is recommending that all schools use a validated phonics scheme to teach phonics. In our school, we are using ‘Sounds Write’ across EYFS and Key Stage 1.  In Year 3 – 6 the ‘Sounds Write’ approach is used to underpin the teaching of spelling.

Our Reading Scheme

As part of the reading scheme, we have decodable phonics books which link to the scheme which we follow (Sounds Write).  These are used throughout EYFS and Key Stage 1. We also have other decodable and non-decodable books that form part of our reading scheme, this includes Oxford Reading Tree and Floppy Phonics. We believe having a consistent reading scheme supports us to assess the children’s reading abilities and enable them to progress and show evidence of progression through the book levels. At our school we understand the importance of inclusion and differentiation, so we ensure we have a range of books which suit the needs of children with SEN or children who are reluctant readers.

Reading Lessons

Our reading lessons are based on the research undertaken by Christopher Such in his book ‘The Art and Science of Primary Reading.’  Every class from Year 2 to Year 6 undertakes a thirty minute reading session each day.  This is in addition to their English session.  Texts are chosen to challenge pupils and offer a wide variety of fiction, non-fiction and poetry across the school, as well as introduce the children to a wide range of authors.  The reading sessions include fluency practice, extended reading and cloze reading.  Each element is prioritised based on the needs of the class in each year group.

Maths

The school uses White Rose maths schemes and resources to support the teaching of maths across the school.  White Rose workbooks are used for the majority of maths learning.  However, this is supplemented with additional challenges and resources to enable each child to achieve their individual potential.

If you wish to find out more about our curriculum, please contact Mrs. G. Newton, the school's curriculum lead.  G.newton@stocks-green.kent.sch.uk 

What does your child learn at school each day? Find information about the learning in your child's class here.