Curriculum Overview
Our curriculum intent is, “To provide pupils with exciting, challenging and engaging learning opportunities that give a lifelong passion for learning and provide them with the skills and knowledge to pursue their interests and passions.”
We follow a curriculum that develops our children in an engaging way encouraging high expectations. Our curriculum is purposefully broad and children have opportunities to participate in a wide range of cross-curricular activities as well as in music, performance and sport.
We encourage children to question and to think both logically and creatively. We aim to make children as independent as possible and encourage them to find their own solutions to problems or tasks they have been set, beginning the journey to becoming lifelong learners.
Our curriculum promotes resilience and encourages children to reflect on their learning and how they learn systematically. The curriculum includes all that the children are taught and experience. This is not only the formal requirements of the National Curriculum, but also our extra-curricular activities such as: after-school and lunchtime clubs, which enrich children’s learning and offer opportunities beyond that of the national curriculum; visitors to school during assemblies and other special occasions, some of whom are from our local community; school trips related to curriculum area that children are learning about; sporting events both competitive and experiential to learn new sports etc. We believe that these additional activities enrich the educational experience of our children.
Our curriculum also aims to help children form positive relationships with adults and children in order to learn how to work collaboratively in preparation for becoming responsible members of our local community both in the present and in their future adult lives.
Please see the subject tabs for further information about the school curriculum.
Curriculum enquiries can be made via the main office: 01452 881962 or email: admin@waterwellsprimary.co.uk and will be passed to the relevant subject lead.
Here you can find information on the school curriculum with any additional specific information available on the individual Class pages.
Reading and phonics
We believe that a quality English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion. We aim to inspire an appreciation of our rich and varied literary heritage and a habit of reading widely and often. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and who can use discussion to communicate and further their learning.
We believe that children need to develop a secure knowledge-base in English, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. Books have been selected to have an approach where books are cumulative through theme and progressive by complexity of text. We believe that a secure basis in English skills is crucial to a high quality education and will give our children the tools they need to participate fully as a member of society.
Reading is taught using a whole class approach. High quality texts are chosen and children use the VIPERS to identify the 6 reading domains within the National Curriculum. hese are the key areas which children need to understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts.
Phonics
Phonics is a way of teaching children to read quickly and skilfully. Children are taught how to recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes; identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make; and blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word.
The Phonics scheme we use to teach phonics is:
- Read, Write, Inc
Through the Read, Write Inc. Programme, children learn the alphabetic code: the 150+ graphemes that represent the 44 speech sounds. They rapidly learn sounds and the letters, or groups of letters, they need to represent them.
What is Read, Write Inc. (RWI) phonics?
The RWI phonics programme is a systematic and synthetic way of teaching children to read. It was developed by Ruth Miskin. More information can be found at www.ruthmiskinliteracy.com
Who is RWI for?
Children will begin the programme in Reception and will remain on the programme until they are reading at an expected Year 2 level. Our aim is for most children to have finished by the end of Year 2. However, some children will continue RWI intervention if needed.
How will it work?
The children will have a daily RWI phonics lesson, which includes reading and writing activities. A few children who may need extra support to maintain progress will work with an adult for an extra ten minutes a day.
How do we know RWI works?
Schools embedding this programme have been recognised by OFSTED in the HMI ‘Reading by Six Report’ (November 2010) as an example of how the best schools teach reading.
How can I help my child at home?
- Establish a routine to include reading regularly throughout the day and the week. Listen to your child read the same Read Write Inc. Storybook again and again.
- Have fun with the ‘Fred talk’ (sounding out the words) at home e.g. ‘Where is your c-oa-t?’ ‘Time for b-e-d!’
- Encourage your child to ‘Fred Talk’ or sound out any unfamiliar words
- Recognise ‘red words’ together (These are words that can’t be sounded out e.g. ‘was’ )
- Comment in your child’s Reading Record to keep a dialogue going with the class teacher
- Read as many stories to your child as you can. Traditional tales, stories from other cultures, poetry, their favourite story- talk about the stories with them. The more you read to them, the bigger vocabulary and interest in reading they’ll have.
- Explain the meaning of new words. Most importantly show the fun that can be gained by listening to stories!
There are free video tutorials on this website if you’d like to know more about Read, Write Inc. phonics – www.ruthmiskin.com
Select ‘Find out more’ at the top, then ‘Parents’ from the drop-down list.
There are also free e-books to support home reading on Oxford Owl:
Mathematics
Mathematics is an important creative discipline that helps us to understand and change the world. We want all pupils to experience the beauty, power and enjoyment of mathematics and develop a sense of curiosity about the subject.
We foster positive ‘can do’ attitudes and believe all children can achieve in mathematics. We teach for secure and deep understanding of mathematical concepts. We use mistakes as an essential part of learning and provide challenges through rich and sophisticated problems before acceleration through new content.
Outdoor learning
The best classroom has no ceiling.
The outdoor learning environment is a rich, dynamic, natural space that is ever-changing and a perfect environment for learning and development in children (and adults) of all ages. Its value as an essential learning resource has been recognised by many pieces of research and more recently within the EYFS, particularly within the principle of 'Enabling Environments'.
- Being outdoors has a positive impact on children's sense of well-being and helps all aspects of children's development.
- Being outdoors offers opportunities for doing things in different ways and on different scales than when indoors.
- Being outdoors offers first-hand contact with the weather, the seasons and the natural world.
- Outdoor environments offer children freedom to explore, question, challenge themselves, use their senses and be physically active and exuberant.