Curriculum Overview

Our curriculum incorporates the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum [2014] while also meeting the specific learning and developmental needs of the pupils at our school. The aim for our new curriculum is for pupils to have the requisite skills and knowledge to be successful, independent, motivated and knowledgeable learners for their next stage of education. This is further complemented by the school’s values of respect, relationships, resilience, risk taking, resourcefulness and reflection.

Our curriculum has clear, focused learning outcomes for each subject area and revisits key learning regularly so that learning is truly understood and embedded. This will ensure that our children move on to secondary school with the necessary core skills and knowledge alongside a greater depth of understanding. We are aiming for a curriculum that has links throughout a year, links across the subjects and links year on year.

Leadership at Lakenheath Community Primary is shared. There are leaders for each subject and they are responsible for ensuring the breadth of coverage and progression of skills within their subject across the whole school. They are not always experts in their subject but they are responsible and accountable for the development of their subject, standards within it and meeting the training needs of staff.

It is our intent to develop a curriculum that is fun, enjoyable and purposeful. It should develop all aspects of learning, enabling children to make links to previous experiences and become life-long learners.

IMPLEMENTATION

At Lakenheath Community Primary School we have mixed age classes from Y1 to Y6. EYFS are taught the early years’ curriculum through a play based approach. We aim not to cross the key stages so years 1 and 2 are mixed across three classes, then years 3 and 4 and finally years 5 and 6. Where this is not possible we think carefully about the mix of ages and the children’s needs to create classes where we can meet all their ability requirements.

We have now run a traditional mixed year arrangement since September 2018 and therefore have developed a 2 year rolling programme, Plans A and B. The subjects are timetabled so that they are taught daily – such as English and Maths or weekly – music, PSHE, Science, Humanities and languages. There are times where subjects may be blocked into half terms or focus weeks to ensure quality teaching – e.g. Art and D&T. There is no hard and fast rule regarding the organisation of the lessons as we respond to the topics being taught and tailor the curriculum for the children in each year.

We currently use a number of schemes and resources to support our teaching. These include, but are not exclusive to:

White Rose Maths – Y1 - Y6 (Early Years follow aspects of White Rose alongside NCETM Mastering Number)

The Power of Reading – this is the basis for both reading and writing across the whole school

Little Wandle - Phonics

Accelerated Reader – reading for Y2 to Y6

'Language Angels' – French for KS2

 

KAPOW - Art scheme 

 

KAPOW - PSHE/ RSHE

 

Projects on a Page - D&T

 

PLAN primary science documents from the ASE which is the association for science education -Science

Get Set 4 PE – PE for whole school

Membership of the Forest Heath Primary School Sports Association (FHPSSA) - access to courses, tournaments, CPD etc.

Our curriculum is further supported by a variety of enrichment days, trips, visitors and activities which are part funded by the local charity, ‘Goward and Evans’. We believe that education is more than just class based learning. We use trips and visits to broaden the experiences of all our children as they add hands-on learning, real-life situations and out of class opportunities. Some recent examples include:

• Paralympian speakers
• London visit
• Residential stays for Y3/4 and for Y5/6
• SNAPE music festival
• O2 Arena - Young Voices
• Little City
• Africa Alive
• Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse.

We have a Forest School on-site, which children from EYFS access regularly and groups of children throughout the school have experience of through weekly sessions or one off Forest days.

IMPACT

The impact of our newly revised curriculum should be children with a passion for learning with good attitudes and behaviour for learning. We aim for the majority of our pupils to reach the age related expectations for the end of each year and key stage. This is assessed using national testing [Y1 phonics, Y2 SATS, Y4 times tables screening, Y6 SATS] as well as through teacher assessments and ongoing quiz-style assessments and activities.

We aim to give all our children the key skills as set out in the national curriculum as well as a broad and balanced knowledge enabling them to go on to the next phase of their education ready to become life-long learners.

Please click on the link below to compare performance tables;