Learning and Curriculum
Queenswood's Curriculum
We want our pupils to know more and remember more.
The Staff and Governors of Queenswood Primary School and Nursery believe that each child must have equal access to a rich, broad, balanced, and differentiated curriculum. The curriculum must be well matched to pupils’ ages, abilities, interests, aptitudes and individual needs so as to ensure that it is inclusive of all children. The curriculum needs to ensure pupils consistently achieve highly, particularly the significant proportion of disadvantaged pupils attending our school. Therefore our ambitious curriculum is designed to provide pupils with the knowledge, and the cultural capital (“the essential knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens, introducing them to the best that has been thought and said, and helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement” NC 2014 3.1,3.2) needed to ensure success in later life.
The curriculum will engage the children’s interest, encourage and motivate them to want to learn.
Reading is prioritised to allow children full access to the curriculum offer.
In reading in EYFS and at Key Stage 1, school has a rigorous and systematic approach to teaching children to read and developing pupils’ accuracy, fluency and confidence. We use the ‘Read, Write Inc.’ scheme where reading connects closely to the phonics knowledge being taught in a systematic way.
- The curriculum will engage the children’s interest, encourage and motivate them to want to learn.
- Reading is prioritised to allow children full access to the curriculum offer.
- In reading in EYFS and at Key Stage 1, school has a rigorous and systematic approach to teaching children to read and developing pupils’ accuracy, fluency and confidence. We use the ‘Read, Write Inc.’ scheme where reading connects closely to the phonics knowledge being taught in a systematic way.
- In Reading at Key Stage 2, pupils are expected to read widely and often, demonstrating fluency and comprehension appropriate to their age.
- The curriculum will be used to increase pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding, as they grow and develop and become more aware of the world around them. It aims to develop individual fluency, so pupils are able to unconsciously apply their knowledge in different situations.
- The curriculum will be carefully planned and structured to ensure that learning is continuous, whilst ensuring children re-visit key concepts in order to embed, retain and recall key skills developed. The aim is to ensure that learning in each lesson is transferred into long-term memory over time.
- It will open their eyes to the wonders of creation and cause them to marvel at the incredible and fantastic world in which we live.
We build our curriculum around the needs of the disadvantaged pupils to ensure they succeed and make progress.
For further details of our Curriculum, please download our full Curriculum Policy here.
Coverage
The following documents shows the coverage of the National Curriculum across the age groups.
As we have mixed aged classes, the objectives from both the year groups will be planned on a two yearly cycle and in the academic year 2020/21, all classes are following the 'A' curriculum.
The following documents show the coverage of the school classes in a termly overview.
Subjects
In all subjects, it is our aim that children build on prior learning, and that over time they can demonstrate that they know more, can do more and understand concepts at a greater depth. To that end Queenswood have drawn on a range of research, DfE guidance, the national curriculum and published schemes, as well as collaborated with other schools locally to ensure a clear teaching sequence is taught across all subjects. We have developed, as a school, our long term plans for each subject to achieve this:
- Art
- Computing
- DT
- Geography - Geography policy- Showing impact in Geography
Literacy
We use Read, Write Inc by Ruth Miskin as our primary phonics programme. This provides us with a structured, pacey programme for our Early Years Foundation Stage and year 1 children. We also use the programme to provide intervention support for those children identified as needing it. We also use the Read, Write Inc. Spelling programme from Y2 to Y6, which addresses the National Curriculum spelling programme expectations through a daily spelling lesson. You can find more information at the link below.
In order to provide our children with a structured way of thinking and talking about reading, we have adopted 'Reading Vipers' . Reading lessons take place daily, for 30 mins, talking about reading and responding to our reading in a variety of ways.
To teach writing we have planned a clear sequence of teaching for each class linking the quality texts, genres, grammar and punctuation together. These are all linked to the class theme in the year group's long term plan.
Maths
Mathematics at Queenswood
"Excellent teaching gives children the life chances they deserve... Enjoyment is the birthright of every child. But the most powerful mix is the one that brings the two together. Children learn better when they are excited and engaged - but what excites and engages them best is truly excellent teaching."
Excellence and enjoyment: a strategy for primary schools, May 2003
Mathematics at Queenswood is based on the three main aims of the ‘New Primary Mathematics Curriculum 2014’ from Foundation Stage to Year 6. These aims are listed below.
Aims
The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:
- become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
- reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language
- can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.
Upper KS2 Maths Long Term Plan
Y1/2 Autumn Maths Medium Term Plan Y1/2 Spring Maths Medium Term Plan Y1/2 Summer Maths Medium Term Plan
Y3/4 Autumn Maths Medium Term Plan Y3/4 Spring Maths Medium Term Plan Y3/4 Summer Maths Medium Term Plan
Y5/6 Autumn Maths Medium Term Plan Y5/6 Spring Maths Medium Term Plan Y5/6 Summer Maths Medium Term Plan
School Curriculum
The new programmes of study for mathematics are set out year-by-year for key stages 1 and 2. Schools are, however, only required to teach the relevant programme of study by the end of the key stage. Within each key stage, schools therefore have the flexibility to introduce content earlier or later than set out in the programme of study. In addition, schools can introduce key stage content during an earlier key stage, if appropriate.
Please click here to access more information about national curriculum on the government website.