FOREST SCHOOL

Our school is surrounded by beautiful fields and woodland and we are delighted that the children can take full advantage of this in their regular Forest School sessions.  They are able to walk from school, with our two fully trained Teaching Assistants, straight into the woods and spend a whole morning or afternoon learning in a woodland environment. If you would like to read more about this, please have a look at our handbook.

CORE AND FOUNDATION SUBJECTS

All children are taught the core subjects of English, Mathematics, Science and Information Communication Technology (I.C.T.) and wherever possible this is integrated into the themed topic along with the foundation subjects. Religious Education is an important area of the curriculum and is taught either through the creative curriculum or as a separate lesson. All pupils have French, Music and Physical Education lessons each week taught by specialist teachers.

Our termly topics are introduced through ‘Stunning Starts’ to engage and excite pupils immediately in the theme. For this reason we do not publish our Long Term Plan but we publish ‘Topic Parent Leaflets’ for each class just after the start of term.

These subjects are taught wherever possible within our topics. We follow National Curriculum guidelines, full details can be found HERE.
For Reception Class we follow the EYFS Curriculum guidelines available HERE.

PHONICS AND EARLY READING

There is a daily phonics session taught in our Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 classes in accordance with the Letters and Sounds document. This provides a synthetic and systematic approach to the teaching of phonics and supports both the develoment of children’s reading and writing skills. In our Reception class we additionally use resources from Jolly Phonics to provide a multisensory approach to learning.  Children in Key Stage 2 who have not yet acquired the necessary skills, or who are not yet secure in applying them independently, take part in focussed teaching groups.

Currently pupils are taught within the phase that is appropriate to their level of learning in their own classes. They are assessed regularly and groupings are sorted accordingly. In Key Stage 1 and 2 weekly spellings are based on the current week’s teaching and contain both tricky and decodable words.

We work in partnership with our parents to support the development of all children’s reading skills.  In addition to daily reading opportunities in the classroom children also take home books to share with their families.  These books follow our phonics and tricky word teaching.  We use a combination of reading schemes including Oxford Reading Tree, Big Cat Collins, Rigby Rocket and Stars, Story World and Project X.

LIFE SKILLS

We teach ‘Life Skills’ important for pupils to be able to enjoy and participate fully in today’s world. These include independence, self-confidence, communication, collaboration and creativity, to name but a few.  These skills are taught throughout the curriculum but also through special projects.

An example of these projects is a charity day held to raise funds for the ‘Street Child’ charity supporting children in Sierra Leone.  The children ran a fundraising afternoon with stalls of activities or items for sale. This was done with minimum guidance or help from staff.  The children worked in groups with a mix of ages, making decisions and clear strategies together.  They had a great day, were incredibly supportive of each other and raised lots of money!