Curriculum

At Melbourn Primary School our vision is to create a broad and balanced curriculum for our children. We want to ‘Make Learning Irresistible’ with an inspiring curriculum. When planning we ensure that everything we know about our children is incorporated in what we deliver, this helps to ensure that both the needs and interests of our children are at the heart of the learning journey. Through our ‘Melbourn Offer’ we have made opportunities for our children to experience more than the National Curriculum, this is extremely important to us as it gives children the chance to broaden their horizons and create life long learning moments.

At Melbourn we truly value each subject and ensure it has a place within our curriculum. The curriculum is structured to provide continuity and progression throughout year groups, key stages and the whole school. We organise the curriculum through a mixture of topic work and discrete subject teaching.  Our aim is to delve ‘deeply’ into specific subject areas to allow our children to become passionate about what they learn. In addition to our subject curriculum we offer an outdoor learning curriculum based on the principles and ethos of forest school. This is closely linked with our learning and children often use the outside space and local area in addition to their set ‘Forest School’ sessions.

Our curriculum is planned with four main aims which closely tie in with our school vision:

• To create passionate and enthusiastic learners
• To enable everyone to be ambitious for a lifetime of learning
• To broaden the horizons of our pupils
• To create a sense of community where everyone knows they are valued

If you wish to learn more about the curriculum we teach at Melbourn Primary School, please contact the school office who will arrange an appointment with our curriculum lead for you.

When providing the curriculum Melbourn Primary School complies with its duty under the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 in making the curriculum accessible for those with disabilities or special educational needs.

Please find more information via the link below: -

EYFS Provision:

Children are taught phonics skills using the RWInc scheme as a basis.  This scheme uses regular assessment and has a clear structure which enables children to make good progress.  The children enjoy learning the sayings that support them in writing letters and having 'Fred Frog' as part of the phonics session.  Fred can only speak in sounds so he supports the children in learning blending needed to read and segmenting needed to spell.  Alongside phonics ‘The Write Stuff’ approach is used so that the children are able to learn and explore stories and start writing with a good understanding of structure and using a broad vocabulary.  The children also have access to books that match their reading ability which, are used for both reading in school and at home.  Our Early Years team believe that an enjoyment of books and stories is at the heart of what they do.
For mathematical learning the teaching is based on 'mastery'.  The White Rose Maths scheme is followed.  Teachers regularly review learning to ensure the children are secure on concepts and use baseline to assess the level of the children when they come in so that learning is building on prior knowledge.

 During the Reception Year the children explore and investigate, watch and listen, talk and discuss, create and communicate in a very practical way through play or adult led activities.  We plan our learning by exploring the interests of our children and re-visiting areas over the year to ensure concepts are secure. We also incorporate key events inside and out of our locality and give the children first-hand experiences such as cooking and planting.

At Melbourn, we understand the importance of personal, social and emotional development.  We believe it underpins all aspects of learning and in the EYFS curriculum this is a prime area.   Time is spent helping children form positive relationships, building confidence and self-awareness, as well as managing their emotions in order to give them a solid foundation to their school life.  Learning in this area is interwoven across the curriculum and the school day as well as being taught more discretely. 

We know that physical development is valuable for our children and we teach them to move more confidently showing an awareness of space along with understanding how to look after themselves and be healthy.  We help children improve their fine motor skills daily through activities like cutting, threading, teaching pencil control and playing with playdough.  We also develop gross motor skills through weekly PE, teaching children to ride balance bikes, making obstacle courses and using equipment like balls and bats.

We develop the children's creativity by having art resources available daily and teaching the children how to use a range of media including paint, pastels, chalk, charcoal, pencils and pens.  We also encourage role play and story-telling by having puppets available, role play areas based on the home and a theme in line with our current topic. We sing regularly and teach the children how to keep the beat and play percussion instruments.

Finally, we help the children to gain an understanding of the world by learning about different religious celebrations and festivals. Being able to talk about things they have celebrated and their own beliefs as well as understanding that other people have different beliefs and celebrations is important for our school.  We develop the children's understanding of the past by sharing events from their own lives and looking at events that have happened longer ago but are still remembered today such as the gunpowder plot.  We talk about different environments and encourage children to look for similarities and differences between them.  We also encourage children to ask questions and investigate what the answers are.  We talk about the seasons throughout the year and observe seasonal changes.  The children also attend Forest School once a week.