Curriculum
Swarland Primary School Curriculum
Please see download section at the bottom to access content of curriculum by year group.
CURRICULUM VALUES
- Inclusive
- Creative and based on pedagogy.
- Stimulus for lifelong learning
- Promotes independence and intrinsic motivation to want to achieve through our bespoke learning behaviours.
CURRICULUM SHOULD
- Provide opportunities for all children to achieve and be the best that we can be in school and their community.
- Foster critical thinking and problem solving skills in all areas and provide the opportunity to use and apply these skills and knowledge in a range of contexts.
- Promote a love of reading.
LEARNING & TEACHING OF THE CURRICULUM SHOULD
- Share high expectations
- Be engaging, active and creative.
- Challenge
- Allow for reflection and meta-cognition.
- Promote collaboration and team work to solve problems.
- Personalise learning.
CURRICULUM SHOULD ENTITLE YOUNG PEOPLE TO
- Quality teaching
- Personalised learning opportunities to be the best that they can be.
- A coherent well planned curriculum that focuses on knowledge and skills, with reading at its core and is reviewed regularly to meet the needs of the children.
- Preparation and opportunities to develop life skills, effective learning behaviours and lifelong learning leading to aspirational careers.
CURRICULUM EXPERIENCES & OUTCOMES
- Happy, well-rounded children prepared for the wider world.
- Success and achievement.
- All national curriculum subjects as a minimum with reading prioritised across the curriculum.
- Educational visits to enrich classroom learning.
- Partnership work with other children, schools and communities to aid transition and build positive healthy relationships.
- Links with other artists and people to enhance the curriculum and learning opportunities.
PERSONAL SUPPORT IN THE CURRICULUM
- Transitions effectively managed
- Knowing all children as individuals, their strengths, next steps and characteristics of learning.
- Knowing their family make up and background and ways in which we can support learning in the family including development of reading, fostering positive relationships with parents.
- Mental and emotional needs addressed.
CURRICULUM DESIGN
- Incorporate challenge and enjoyment, breadth, depth, coherence, relevance and opportunities for mastery.
- Includes progression, personalisation and choice.
Breadth Of Curriculum
At Swarland Primary School we carefully design, plan and implement a curriculum which provides breadth and depth for every pupil. Careful analysis and discussion about our pupils’ backgrounds and what this means in relation to learning needs and local context takes place. Life experiences and culture has helped us to design a curriculum with three key priorities underpinning every subject area. We believe that by focusing on the following key priorities our children will be ready to successfully meet the challenges of the next stage of their education and their lives.
Our curriculum priorities are:
- Learning Behaviours – we aim to provide experiences which develop characteristics of perseverance, resilience, tolerance, independence, readiness and positive attitude to learning.
- Cultural awareness – we aim to provide experiences which show the children the wide and diverse community of Britain beyond their local area and cultures in the wider world.
- Environment – we aim to provide experiences which help our pupils value their environment and understand their responsibilities towards sustaining their local and global environment through Forest Schools.
- Knowledge and skills inter-weaved to allow children to make connections across curricular areas through the application of reading.
We have designed and planned our curriculum to offer a range of experiences which contribute to every child receiving a full and rich curriculum. The range of experiences we offer, support and champion our culture and ensures that our children benefit from a full range of academic, spiritual, moral, social and cultural activities. These activities enrich their lives and those of our whole school community and make them proud of their British values and diverse society to which they belong and play an active part in. We are proud that our curriculum gives our children the knowledge and skills, confidence and self-belief to lead a happy life by encouraging them to be aspirational and work towards their goals and dreams in life.
Balance of Curriculum
It is our fundamental belief that every child should feel valued and experience the feeling of success in a wide range of curriculum areas. We believe that through the curriculum we can impact children’s self-confidence and self-awareness, so that they feel prepared to tackle any challenge they may face.
We have designed, organised and planned our curriculum to ensure every child receives an appropriate mix of academic and personal development which means in practice our curriculum places equal importance on core and foundation subjects, whilst prioritising reading as a vehicle for learning. Children’s interests and intrigue allows them to follow their own lines of inquiry.
We place high priority on ensuring children’s physical and mental well-being are met. We understand that children will not be successful learners unless they are emotionally secure, therefore we carefully design our curriculum and adopt a flexible approach to timetabling to ensure we can meet and respond to any needs which may arise. Children’s physical and mental well-being are as valued and important as academic development.
We carefully monitor children’s progress with their personal development and our well planned and thoughtful approach to SMSC. It helps us to ensure that every child is well cared for and supported.
Our balanced approach to the curriculum is not at the expense of high standards in core subject areas including reading. High standards and enabling children to reach national expectations and above is of vital importance if they are to succeed at the next stage of their education and go on to achieve full and happy lives and careers.
Our full and rich curriculum, with its range of experiences, ensures that every pupil at Swarland Primary School makes excellent progress both academically and personally. Our unique curriculum ensures that every child is given the opportunity to shine and flourish.
Depth of curriculum
Our definition of progress is the widening and deepening of essential knowledge and skills, understanding and learning behaviours. We design, organise and plan our curriculum to ensure that children are not merely covering content but achieving mastery and depth to their learning which enables them to use their knowledge, skills and understanding across areas of the curriculum.
Our curriculum is meticulously designed and planned to move the nature of children’s thinking to a higher order deep level of understanding rather than just acquiring new facts and knowledge. Careful curriculum design and planning means that we build in many opportunities for consolidation and practise of knowledge, skills and opportunities to revisit in every subject, ensuring it is retained in long term memory. Our curriculum is crafted to enable children to make connections and links between their learning. We ensure that children are able to revisit previous learning frequently, which allows them to gradually develop a deeper understanding of the discrete skills and processes within subjects, at their own pace and in the best possible way for each individual child.
LITERACY
Literacy is taught every day in a dedicated lesson and in a cross curricular way, which provide highly structured and demanding activities to ensure good pupil progress. We encourage reading for pleasure and enjoyment across the school.
In EYFS children begin to use the Jelly Bean Scheme reading books as they promote a secure foundation in phonics. In KS1 we use, Oxford Reading Scheme supplemented with other texts. The Oxford Reading Scheme has systematic phonics at the heart of its books with well loved characters to engage the children. This scheme provides a breadth of rich reading material and experiences. This helps to play a major part in promoting language skills. By developing children's competence, precision and confidence as speakers, by encouraging the children to read poetry, fiction and non-fiction and by analysing the structure of stories so that insights into the nature and techniques of writing are gained, whilst at all times monitoring progress in each area, we feel we can provide a sound foundation on which your child's future language work can develop.
PHONICS
Through Early Years and into KS1, we have also adopted Read, Write, Inc., a synthetic phonics programme which is delivered, throughout the school to enable our pupils to become secure readers, spellers and handwriters. It teaches the essential skills of linking sounds and letters together to form words, to ensure children's early reading and writing develop rapidly. In Year 2 the Read Write Inc spelling programme is introduced to further develop knowledge of spelling patterns and etymology. This is supplemented with a daily grammar session and supporting weekly homework. Communication is important in all walks of life and we hope to send your children on as excellent communicators in both spoken and written English.
For further information on the Read Write Inc programme you may follow the link
https://ruthmiskin.com/en/programmes/phonics/
NUMERACY
The basis of our mathematics teaching is a practical approach in the first instance using concrete objects and representations of concepts with many variations. Emphasis is placed on developing a mathematical fluency alongside reasoning, arithmetic and the ability to use and apply mathematics in real life situations and to explore and investigate mathematics itself. Children need to be able to, use problem solving and investigational strategies, understand mathematical concepts and techniques, apply mathematics to a range of contexts, develop a sense of what mathematics is about.
We have adopted the White Rose scheme of planning. We place a high emphasis on reasoning and and problem solving skills and developing these from an early age. We plan and deliver work in Mathematics through a daily Numeracy lesson as well as developing plentiful opportunities to use and apply maths skills in a range of other subjects.
SCIENCE
Our aim at Swarland is to develop the children's scientific knowledge and understanding and to assist in the acquisition and progression of scientific skills. We have worked with a Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics consultant (STEM) to design a bespoke science curriculum which builds upon and progresses scientific skills through the years. Children are encouraged to ask scientific questions to deepen their own understanding, design experiments and observe the awe and wonder of scientific phenomena.
COMPUTING
Our pupils are taught to use ICT equipment and software in order to communicate and handle information. This work supports their problem solving, recording and expressive work in a cross curricular approach of applying their ICT skills. Children have the opportunity to develop coding skills and debug computer programmes. Children manipulate data and present their findings to others. Children use a range of equipment including video and cameras to record their learning and present their findings in a number of ways. Our children are encouraged to seek out new technologies, evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of the technology and make informed decisions. Underlying all of this is a comprehensive e-safety curriculum to ensure children know how to stay safe online.
THEMATIC APPROACH
Our foundation subjects are taught through a themed approach which holds the pupil’s interests. These subjects are grouped together under faculties to make those cross-curricular links .
Our World – history, geography
Within the programme of study for History we aim to help the children in Key Stage One to develop an awareness of the past and of the ways in which it was different from the present. We discuss ways in which we can find out about the past and set the study of the past in a chronological framework. The areas of study include the family and the everyday life, famous people in British History and past events and local history topics.
Within the programme of study for History in Key Stage Two we aim to teach the children about important episodes and developments in Britain's past, from Roman to Modern times, about ancient civilisations and the history of other parts of the world. They are helped to develop a chronological framework through links across different study units. They also investigate local history and use a range of sources of information including historical field work..
Our work in geography is predominantly concerned with the study of places, the people who live in them and the human and physical processes which occur in them. Our main aim is to develop geographical knowledge and understanding within the children, whilst learning about the U.K. and its relationships with other countries. We make extensive use of the local environment and we take Key Stage Two pupils away each year for a week long field trip.
The Arts – art, music, design & technology and drama
Our award winning Artsmark school provides children with the opportunity to gather and use different resources and materials in Art and to use different materials and techniques in practical work. Art enables us to introduce different periods, cultures and traditions to the children as well as looking in depth at the work of particular artists.
We will provide the opportunity for all children to play, sing, perform and compose music in school and in local ensembles whilst developing the children's ability to listen and identify musical elements and structures.
All our KS2 children learn how to play a tuned musical instrument with a specialist music teacher. Further extra curricular instrument tuition is available to children in Years 1 to 6.
Within design technology, we aim to give the children a range of opportunities in which they can work with a range of materials and components in order to design and make simple products, mechanisms and structures. In designing and making a variety of products the children's knowledge and understanding of materials, structures, control mechanisms, health and safety and technological vocabulary will also be developed.
Our Healthy Life – Physical Education. Personal, Social & Health Education
Children in Early Years develop their gross motor and fine motor skills through their everyday curriculum and provision. As a child progresses to KS1 they progress to multi skill lessons where they develop skills of balance, co-ordination, tactical team games and love and enjoyment of sport, movement and active lifestyles. In KS2 athletic activities, gymnastics, dance, swimming and inter school competitive sports are further developed by our sports leader.
Swimming. This takes place at Alnwick baths each week in the Spring Term with KS2 children attending ensuring all children cam swim at least 25m before they leave us. We aim to give the children experience of every aspect of P.E. to enable them to make informed choices about their likes and dislikes.
PSHE encourages the children to philosphise, make decisions, act out situations, deal with problems, access experts and become experts in managing the wider curriculum. We aim to send our children out of this school as confident people, keen to make their own decisions. We have developed P4C (Philosophy For Children) to support children with this area. It is a fundamental part of our curriculum that mental health and well being and developed alongside the academic subjects.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Opportunities abound for considering moral values relating to everyday life - honesty, truthfulness, working together, considering the needs and feelings of others - and in our school the terms of Religious Education and Moral Education are almost synonymous.
We are further required to provide a "broadly based Christian approach" and must also take into account the teachings and practices of other principal faiths represented in Great Britain as well as respect the rights of parents to withdraw their children from Religious Education.
SCHOOL ASSEMBLIES
A daily assembly takes place within the School. Each class teacher takes an Assembly on a rota basis. Although the school has no particular affiliation to a church, Rev Edward Butlin or Rev James Harvey, come into school to take our Assemblies to deliver collective worship with strong moral or spiritual messages. The Assemblies are "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character" as required by the 1988 Education reform Act. All children take part in the Assembly, other than those children whose parents have specifically asked for their children to be exempted from attendance.
SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS EDUCATION
Sex education is taught directly and indirectly through the PHSE and science curriculum for all children at an age appropriate level. Relationship education begins from the Early Years as we teach the children how to treat one another with respect.
HOMEWORK
We believe homework can have a positive effect on children's outcomes. The work set is linked with lessons the children have had during the week. Through this homework the children will consolidate and reinforce the skills and knowledge learnt in class.
At Swarland School we encourage a strong parental involvement with reading. A ‘home’ reading book is taken home by the children every night so they increase their fluency when reading new books and stories and enjoy the pleasure of reading. The reading books have been graded according to their difficulty. We ask you to help your child by supervising this daily reading task.
PARENTS AND THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM
Parents need to be kept informed about what their children will be learning at school and how they are progressing. We will do this by:
An annual report on your child.
Termly Parents Consultations.
Shared termly learning sessions
Regular reports from independent inspections of the school by the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED).
Performance tables from all local schools.
School Booklets and newsletters.
Family Learning sessions and e-safety sessions.
You will also receive regular newsletters, invites to curricular events and a copy of your child’s focus for each term or half term’s topic. We regularly invite you in to take part in lessons and events alongside your child.
Should you require any further information about any aspect of the Curriculum or how your child is progressing, please contact your child’s class teacher or the Headteacher.
EXTRA CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
Swarland Primary School encourages local community training in sports and is or has involved working alongside Trident trainers to provide football training, the Falcons to provide Rugby training and Swarland Golf Club.
Extra-curricular activities are available each week and change each half term to reflect children's interests. These include sports clubs such as American Football, basketball, street dance as well as children's interests such as Computer Coding, cookery, art, choir, science and engineering, etc.
Key Stage 2 children have a one week residential visit to promote outdoor adventurous activity. Visits have included Robin Woods, Kingswood and Ford Castle and London.
CLASS ORGANISATION
There are currently four classes in school and we cater for the first years of your children's education. We always try to keep age groups together wherever possible but the financial implications for maintaining a set class structure classes in school are tremendous and the organisation has to change on a yearly basis.
Parents will find out more about the curriculum their child is following through half termly curriculum newsletters. However if you require any further curriculum information please do not hesitate to see your child's class teacher or the Headteacher.