Curriculum
Our children enjoy a rich and engaging, knowledge led curriculum taught by enthusiastic teachers with a passion for primary education. Underpinned by the expectations of the National curriculum, our curriculum design provides the pupils with a coherent, content-rich and cumulative academic experience that develops children's cultural capital and ensures outstanding academic achievement. It is our intent that children will leave us with a relevant body of knowledge which they will retain, long after they have progressed to secondary school and well into their adult lives.
Our talented and dedicated members of staff provide a learning environment that seeks to engage and challenge all children, not only to achieve high standards, but to develop a thirst for learning which allows them to thrive and become inspired to be the best they can possibly be. We guide our children to grow into adaptable, confident young people who are resilient, independent learners with enquiring minds and a ‘can do’ attitude.
INDEPEDENT LEARNING POWER
We place learning at the heart of all that we do. We are keen to develop independent, reflective learners with the ability to assess their own learning potential and increase their capacity to learn as they develop in age and maturity. We want to equip children with the skills, techniques and vocabulary to talk about their learning more effectively. Developing independent learning power is the mechanism through which we are enabling this.
Life-long learning is an essential part of human development. We can continually develop our capacity to learn in new and challenging circumstances throughout our life.
There are four key learning dispositions and it is these four that underpin this initiative:
- Resilience
- Reflectiveness
- Resourcefulness
- Reciprocity/social relationships
Early Years Foundation Stage Learning
Our youngest children enjoy a learning culture that encourages curiosity and questioning of the world around them through a learning environment that fosters motivation, independence, collaboration and self-esteem. They are offered a variety of learning opportunities and experiences, carried out through explorative and investigative play across these seven key areas:
3 Prime Areas: Communication and Language, Physical Development, Personal, Social and Emotional Development
4 Specific Areas: Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World, Expressive Arts and Design
KS1 English and Maths
English lessons are made up of: Phonics, Reading, Writing, Spelling and Grammar.
Phonics: Children are taught phonics systematically through the Little Wandle programme, in conjunction with the additional resources in small groups using a variety of multi-sensory strategies.
Reading: Children are taught to apply their growing phonic knowledge alongside a developing high frequency word sight memory. Through daily reading sessions using our Little Wandle books, we provide clear progression of reading skills. Your child may also carry out Guided Reading sessions with their teacher in a small group.
Writing: Children will learn to match the appropriate sound to each letter of the alphabet. They will practise the correct way to form upper and lowercase letters and when ready, they will begin joining letters in a cursive script. Gradually children will be introduced to the elements of punctuation such as full stops, capital letters and question marks. By the end of KS1 they will be planning their own story ideas and writing longer and more engaging pieces with a beginning, middle and end using correct punctuation and grammar.
Maths: Children are taught Maths in a very practical, hands-on way. Working individually, as a class and in groups, they will investigate, count, play number games and use everyday objects to help them solve problems and do simple calculations. As they start to become more familiar with the language used in Maths, they will be encouraged to talk about their methods for solving problems and presenting their results. Children will learn about the Maths concepts of: Number, Place Values, Calculating, Measuring and Geometry.
KS2 English and Maths
Reading: As part of the reading journey across KS2, the children move from decoding words to interpretation of texts so that by the end of Year 6, most children are confident, fluent readers who can successfully employ deduction and inference skills to unpick more challenging texts with confidence and precision.
Writing: Writing also takes on a journey of progression across KS2: handwriting becomes clearer and neater, spelling develops accuracy and punctuation is used correctly to create effect. Children write longer and better-crafted pieces, using characters, dialogue and highly imaginative vocabulary to spark interest and engagement for the reader.
Maths: By the end of KS2 most children will have developed sound arithmetic and reasoning ability. They will be given regular opportunity to reason, wonder about and investigate, and to apply these skills and knowledge to solve multi-stepped 'real life' problems. Children will learn about the Maths concepts of: Number and place value, Calculations, Fractions, Decimals and Percentages, Ratio and Proportion, Algebra, Measurement, Geometry and Statistics.
In addition to English and Maths, children learn about Science, RE, Computing, Art, History, Geography, Design & Technology, Citizenship, French, Music and PE.
Further guidance on the National Curriculum for all primary subjects can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-primary-curriculum
Stowting Curriculum Documents (This year we are on Cycle B.)
Stowting School's Phonics and Early Reading Policy
Stowting PE Skills Progression
Our curriculum is designed to ensure that every child can experience, learn and achieve whatever their ability, age, disability, gender, race, religion or culture. Parents are encouraged to discuss any concerns they might have in relation to the above with their child’s class teacher in the first instance. Every effort will be made to adapt how we offer aspects of our curriculum if necessary. We are sensitive to children’s protected characteristics and also make every effort to ensure that all school resources reflect our commitment to equal opportunities for all.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/1530/contents/made
If you wish to find out further information regarding the school curriculum, please contact the school office