Curriculum Aims and Intent

Our curriculum aims/intends to:

• Provide a broad and balanced education for all pupils that is coherently planned and sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge for skills and future learning and employment
• Enable pupils to develop knowledge, understand concepts, acquire skills and be able to choose and apply these in relevant situations
• Support pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development
• Support pupils’ physical development and responsibility for their own health and enable them to be active
• Ensure equal access to learning for all pupils, with high expectations for every pupil and appropriate levels of challenge and support
• Promote the learning and development of our youngest children and ensure they are ready for Key Stage 1 

School Values

These are the main values of our school upon which we have based our curriculum:

• We value children's uniqueness, we listen to the views of individual children and we promote respect for diverse cultures
• We value the spiritual and moral development of each person, as well as their intellectual and physical growth
• We value the importance of each person in our community and we organise our curriculum to promote inclusion, cooperation and understanding among all members of our community
• We value the rights enjoyed by each person in our society. We respect each child in our school for who they are and we treat them with fairness and honesty. We want to enable each person to be successful, and we provide equal opportunities for all our pupils.
• We will strive to meet the needs of all our children and to ensure that we meet all statutory requirements regarding inclusion
• We value our environment, and we want to teach our pupils, through our curriculum, how we should take care of the world, not only for ourselves, but also for future generations
• Our six core values are: Honesty, Respect, Friendship, Tolerance, Responsibility and Happiness.

Cornerstones Curriculum

We use Cornerstones as the foundations to our curriculum with an umbrella topic theme overarching all of the learning. This provides a broad and balanced curriculum underpinned by relevant skills and knowledge progression. This approach has a clear pedagogy to each topic and this is clearly shown below.

Engage

At the ‘Engage’ stage, children:

• Gain memorable first-hand experiences
• Enjoy ‘WOW Day’ experiences to set the scene
• Get an exciting introduction to a topic or theme
• Begin researching and setting enquiry questions
• Get lots of opportunities to make observations
• Develop spoken language skills
• Take part in sensory activities
• Have lots of fun to fully ‘engage’ with their new topic

Develop

At the ‘Develop’ stage, children:

• Improve their knowledge and understanding of the topic
• Develop and practice their new skills
• Compose, make, do, build, investigate and explore
• Research their own questions and those set by others
• Follow new pathways of enquiry based on their interests
• Complete homework activities that support their learning

Innovate

At the ‘Innovate’ stage, children:

• Apply skills, knowledge and understanding in real-life contexts
• Solve real or imagined problems using everything they have learnt
• Get inspired by imaginative and creative opportunities
• Revisit anything not fully grasped at the ‘Develop’ stage

Express

At the ‘Express’ stage, children:

• Become the performers, experts and informers
• Share their achievements with parents, classmates and the community
• Evaluate finished products and processes
• Link what they have learnt to where they started
• Celebrate their achievements!

Curriculum Coverage

At Bassingham Primary School we have embraced the mastery approach to teaching Maths. This means that children are taught using carefully selected models and images to support their learning. Lessons are carefully structured to move in very small steps and to include a variety of ways of presenting their understanding of key concepts. We use the White Rose Maths schemes of learning that are recommended by the National Centre of Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM).  

Reading is taught through a variety of whole class, guided group and individual sessions. The main reading scheme used in school is the “Oxford Reading Tree”. This is supported through a graded home-reading system and a wide selection of library books, providing reading material and experience. Every child is encouraged to take their reading books home. A reading record booklet is completed and provides a home-link with parents. A record is also kept using our excellent library management system.

Reading is high priority at Bassingham Primary School and is a core focus within our curriculum. We use the approved government scheme Phonics Bug for the delivery of our phonics teaching across Reception and Key Stage 1. This is based on the Letters and Sounds programme and is a highly structured and supportive approach to the teaching of synthetic phonics. We intend to develop the children’s phonological awareness, ability to segment and blend words and read tricky words by sight in order to become fluent readers. We use Oxford Reading Tree as a basis for our reading scheme supported by Phonics Bug texts for our developing and emerging readers.

The teaching of high-quality phonics is supported by both small group guided reading and whole class reading comprehension lessons. All pupils take part in weekly guided reading sessions with their class teacher or teaching assistant. Pupils are grouped for these sessions via their reading ability. We also use the Nelson Comprehension materials to teach whole class reading. These lessons cover the core reading skills of vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and sequencing (VIPERS).

The teaching of Writing at Bassingham Primary School is underpinned by our Cornerstones Curriculum. Genres are carefully selected based upon the current topic being explored in class. This gives learning a real context and allows meaningful links to be made across the curriculum. Units of writing are taught over a two-week period allowing all aspects of the genre to be explored in depth before pupils write with increasing independence. Pupils also have the opportunity to apply the skills taught through their topic writing and through other subjects. We teach children to develop knowledge and understanding of basic grammar, punctuation and spelling rules through a designated weekly session.

In supporting and enriching our Cornerstones Curriculum, we also use other approaches to teaching wider subject across the Curriculum.

Science – we use Hamilton Trust to teach our hands-on Science curriculum

Computing – we use Purple Mash to teach our Computing curriculum

Physical Education – we use Synergy Sports Coaching to enhance our provision and we also follow their planning across school

Modern Foreign Languages – we use the Twinkl schemes of work to deliver French across Key Stage 2

PSHE – we use Jigsaw, a mindful approach to the teaching of PSHE across school

Music – we use Charanga to teach our Music curriculum

History and Geography are both taught in depth via our Cornerstones Curriculum.

Art and Design and Design and Technology are both taught in depth via our Cornerstones Curriculum.

Religious Education is taught in depth via our Cornerstones Curriculum.

Curriculum Subject Leaders

Please contact Mrs Setterfield in the school office for any queries you may have regarding our curriculum.