This is the curriculum for children from birth to five years old. At The Bramptons this guides the teaching and learning in our Reception class. There are seven areas of learning which the curriculum is organised into. These are all related to each other, however they are divided into Prime and Specific Areas.
Prime Areas
Involves helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves, and others; to form positive relationships and develop respect for others; to develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings; to understand appropriate behaviour in groups; and to have confidence in their own abilities.
Involves providing opportunities for young children to be active and interactive; and to develop their co-ordination, control, and movement. Children must also be helped to understand the importance of physical activity, and to make healthy choices in relation to food.
Involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment; to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves; and to speak and listen in a range of situations.
Specific Areas
Literacy development involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children must be given access to a wide range of reading materials (books, poems and other written materials) to ignite their interest.
Involves providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and to describe shapes, spaces and measures.
Involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.
Involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.
These skills, experiences and learning opportunities are presented to the children through meaningful play contexts and adult led activities. These ensure that each child has the opportunity to play and explore in an active and engaging environment that allows them to be creative, think critically and take risks to achieve more.
Curriculum Intent:
Our Vision
At The Bramptons we aim to offer a rich, engaging and enjoyable school experience in which children are enthusiastic partners in their learning. They enjoy school, form strong friendships and become responsible, respectful young people. Our curriculum is diverse, well planned, thought-provoking, aspirational and punctuated with ‘wow’ moments and experiences. Our children and adults love learning, read willingly for pleasure and retain key skills and knowledge. The school values that we instil embody qualities, skills and characteristics that equip all children to become successful, independent and happy – at school and for life.
The curriculum we offer at The Bramptons Primary School aims to:
Teaching and Learning – Curriculum Implementation
We are a values based school and our learning environment and curriculum should reflect our six school values. Children’s social and emotional needs are given absolute precedence as we are aware that children will not thrive unless those essential needs are met. Happy children learn more! The values that we instil in our children, and staff, pervade every area of the school and should be evident in every aspect of our curriculum. When building our curriculum we take into consideration both the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014, as detailed within our policies.
Our Learning Sequence
At The Bramptons Primary School we believe that effective curriculum sequencing and planning is essential to facilitate impactful and effective learning. Learning needs to be planned over time with an understanding of how children progress, develop and retain information. Teachers and subject leaders need to be aware of the existing knowledge base, skill level and vocabulary to ensure children are provided with learning opportunities targeted at the appropriate level. Long and medium term curriculum planning and assessment are crucial to ensuring the success of this strategy. All staff work together to ensure that lessons and teaching sequences are appropriately pitched. Learning points sit within learning sequences; units of work build on skills and knowledge from earlier points in the curriculum. Teachers and students should make explicit links between their current learning and previously mastered knowledge and skills. We expect teachers to know the logic of the teaching sequence and where the learning sits in the bigger curriculum sequence. We regularly revisit prior learning to help ensure long term retention of knowledge and skills.
Our School Values
Our values should be evident in all that we do at school. Children are taught about the constituent elements of each value and begin to understand the importance that we place in each. Assemblies are used to introduce and explore the values in greater depth and we expect that these principles are referenced in both lessons and social interactions. By emphasising the importance of these key values we aim to embed them within the fabric of our curriculum and of our school.
Our values are:
Respect
Courtesy
Honesty
Loyalty
Perseverance
Compassion
Talk for Writing has been introduced across the School. It is an innovative approach to teaching writing developed by the literacy specialist and writer Pie Corbett. It uses high quality model texts to introduce the children to different story/text types which they then learn off by heart. Talk for Writing provides the children with the opportunity to orally rehearse the language they will use in their writing. Through its multi-sensory and interactive teaching it enables children of all ages and abilities to learn to write a wide range of fiction and non-fiction text types using various methods including:
building their working knowledge of grammar
Talk for Writing sits alongside this creative approach very well. The Inspire Curriculum furnishes children with the facts and knowledge about the area of study. Talk for Writing gives children the skills needed to present this knowledge in an advanced, informative and satisfying way.
Of course, there is no point in having all this knowledge, combined with amazing writing skills, if no one can read what you have written! We use a handwriting scheme called Kinetic Letters. The advantages of using Kinetic Letters are:
•Narrows the achievement gap between boys and girls
•Learn through movement and multisensory experiences
•Physical programme develops concentration and motor skills
•Motivating targets and personal challenges
•Stories and role play, underpin learning
The school mainly uses the Oxford Reading Tree reading scheme but this is supplemented with other books from a range of schemes to provide the children with a broad range of texts to enjoy and learn from.