Curriculum Overview
MISSION STATEMENT
Our aim is to provide a rich and engaging educational experience in a caring, Christian environment in which each individual is valued and respected so that all are enabled to reach their full potential.
OVERVIEW
At Newburgh C.E. Primary School, the curriculum is designed to recognise children's prior learning, provide first hand learning experiences, allow the children to develop interpersonal skills, build resilience and become creative, critical thinkers.
Our curriculum embraces the community in which is it situated, recognising local history, heritage, geographical and business links and most importantly, the aspirations of all our children. We place strong emphasis on the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of all our pupils and our six Christian values underpin expectations for behaviour and attitudes to promote responsibility for learning and future success.
RESPECT HOPE TRUST THANKFULNESS FORGIVENESS FRIENDSHIP
Every child is recognised as a unique individual. We celebrate and welcome differences within our school community. The ability to learn is underpinned by the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, concepts and values. We constantly provide enhancement opportunities and opportunities for our children to be curious. Our ultimate goal in to help our children to have the confidence and skills to become life-long learners.
CURRICULUM INTENT AT NEWBURGH
INTENT
As a school, we are very aware that the vast majority of our pupils are of White British origin and that the percentage of children from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with S.E.N.D. is below national figures.
Our curriculum is designed to deepen knowledge and develop skills, ensuring effective progression within each subject discipline and across all year groups. Early reading is invested in, and prioritised. Our ambition is to develop the 'whole child' nurturing children's talents and celebrating their achievements and successes. Our curriculum plan has been well designed and is well constructed with clear units of work for each year group/class. The plan allows for spiral learning, avoiding unnecessary repetition. but recapping what has gone before and moving learning on. This is further supported through interweaving learning and through regular retrieval practice. We aim for all children to have full access to the curriculum and achieve success, through targeted differentiation and making adaptations, where appropriate, drawing on support from outside agencies and listening to the voice of the child. Our curriculum meets the needs of all our pupils be being practical, creative and includes lots of discussion and visual stimuli. The teaching staff have worked collaboratively to develop the use of inspirational experts, trips, visitors and curriculum days/weeks to bring the curriculum to life and enrich learning. Through this, our curriculum embraces our community, encourages debate and discussion, is based on global dimension and equips our children for life and learning beyond our village, all of which improves the cultural capital for all pupils.
IMPLEMENTATION
We deliver the curriculum through a variety of methods that are both classroom-based and extra-curricular and which also meets the statutory requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage (E.Y.F.S.) and National Curriculum. Our curriculum is well planned and provides cross-curricular opportunities but still ensures that our children know when they are being geographers, historians or scientists. Through the website, parents are provided with knowledge organisers for all History, Geography, R.E., Computing and Science units, to encourage discussion with their child and deepen their knowledge and breadth of vocabulary. Enrichment opportunities, including outdoor learning, inspirational visitors and exciting educational visits provide our children with rich experiences and enhance teaching, learning and knowledge. Knowledge and vocabulary are fundamental within our curriculum and staff exemplify high levels of Standard English at all times. Lessons are well planned to develop and increase children's knowledge, building on prior experiences and making connections in their learning. Children are immersed in and exposed to a diet of vocabulary, which is high-level and subject-specific, to extend their breadth of language. These are displayed within classrooms and on knowledge organisers to further develop 'sticky' knowledge and long-term memory. Lessons are taught so that pupils remember their learning. Topics are revisited through interleaving and skills are utilised to help pupils commit key facts to memory. Our staff value the different ways in which pupils learn and plan lessons to account for these differences. Teachers use different learning resources to teach core content, e.g. manipulative resources, educational videos, guest speakers and I.C.T. in lessons. By using different techniques, we keep pupils engaged with learning and accommodate pupils who learn differently to their peers.
For Mathematics and English, we utilise well-structured assessment opportunities at least every term to inform teacher assessment, which is then discussed at pupil progress meetings. Within the wider curriculum, children are assessed against knowledge-based and skills-based learning objectives, within unit overviews.
A graduated approach is in place for children with specific needs and support plans are co-produced and reviewed with parents termly. For children who are identified as requiring a very high level of support, one-to-one Special Educational Needs and Disability (S.E.N.D.) support is in place to facilitate an adapted curriculum. Small group S.E.N.D. support, in class, under the direction of the class teacher, is provided for children with identified needs, who need a high level of scaffolding and some tailored support. The headteacher undertakes rigorous analysis of teacher assessment data with subject leaders to identify children who are not on track to meet targets and make expected progress. For these children, targeted intervention, based on objectives set by the class teacher, is facilitated in small groups by teachers.
Within quality first teaching, 'Essential Letters and Sounds' our Department for Education (DfE) validated, complete systematic synthetic phonics programme, is effectively delivered daily to whole year groups by class teachers and teaching assistants in Reception and Key Stage 1. Daily phonics lessons in these year groups follow a consistent teaching sequence, which includes review, teach, practise, apply and review. To enable children to 'keep up' rather than require 'catch up'. We use sequential and progressive decodable books to secure fluency and confidence in early reading. In Reception, Key Stage 1, and, where appropriate, Key Stage 2, children are provided with a phonetically fully decodable home reading book, which is linked to their phonics phase plus a highly decodable home reading book and the expectation is that children read their home reading book to an adult at least four times a week. Reading diaries are carefully monitored by class teachers, and children who do not read regularly at home are identified as 'Priority Readers' for further support. Parents are well-informed on how they can support their child in phonics and early reading, through a phonics workshop early in the autumn term with further guidance on our website for all families to access.
A daily whole class story time is carried out and in Key Stage 2 they enjoy sharing a novel over a term. Children are provided with a wide range of opportunities to read, develop positive attitudes towards reading and foster a love of reading. In Key Stage 2, children can select a library book from the Library to take home to read, alongside their reading stage book. In addition, each class has a selection of high-quality reading for pleasure books.
A home school partnership is fostered early at our school and our E.Y.F.S. 'Stay and Play' sessions have a high profile at our school and are integral to our E.Y.F.S. curriculum.
Enrichment including inspirational visitors, sparkling starts and fabulous finishes as well as exciting educational visits, enhance teaching, learning and knowledge. A broad menu of Extra-Curricular clubs is provided to children across school, which includes sport, music, languages, well-being, computing and cookery.
Carefully selected experiences provide our children with unique and rich opportunities to develop cultural capital. Our curriculum promotes children's Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development, ensuring that they are reflective and responsible citizens. Fundamental British Values are actively promoted in order to prepare the children for life in Modern Britain. We also engage with the wider community by ensuring there are opportunities for pupils to participate in community projects and events, e.g. Newburgh Fair, Armistice Day, Village Carols, Village art for Easter and Christmas, Christmas cards to local residents, growing vegetables and sunflowers in partnership with the local farm. This shows pupils the value of being involved in their community and establishes a link between them, local people and their local environment.
IMPACT
Our well-planned curriculum ensures that children are knowledgeable and skilled, achieve well and make good progress at each stage of their education. Through the breadth and depth that our curriculum offers, all children have high aspirations and ambition, are confident and resilient, and well-equipped for the next stage of their education.
Our curriculum enables children to become both articulate and enthusiastic learners, and mathematicians who can confidently reason and problem solve, equipping them with strong foundations for future learning.
Monitoring and evaluation demonstrates hat children's work, both in books and displays, are exemplary and of a very high standard. Children have a love of reading and a love of learning and are able to excel across all aspects of the curriculum. Our children regularly perform significantly better than National across all phases of school. Achievement in Phonics is also consistently significantly above National and our S.E.N.D. pupils achieve well from their starting points.
Crucially, pupils have fond memories of their time at Newburgh and are well-prepared for the next phase of their learning journey both academically and emotionally.
The following gallery gives an idea of the experiences children receive while at Newburgh. Please also see our class pages for the respective Twitter feeds for the most up date information about what our classes are up to.
