Melbourn Primary School
Making Learning Irresistible
Curriculum
At Melbourn Primary School we pride ourselves on providing our children with an inspiring curriculum. When planning, we ensure that everything we know about our children is incorporated into what we deliver. When possible, the school grounds and local environment, educational visits and visitors to school contribute greatly to a curriculum relevant to the children’s experience. This helps to ensure that both the needs and interests of our children are at the heart of the learning journey.
Since the covid-19 school closures, our subject leaders have developed our curriculum to ensure that any gaps in the learning of the children will be met over the course of 2021 and 2022. Close analysis of the learning that has taken place has allowed leaders to adapt subject overviews accordingly to ensure that children continue to progress in the foundation subjects. Each subject area has a rational which explains any adaptations that have taken place.
At Melbourn Primary School, we truly value the importance of Foundation Subjects and have continued to teach each subject during the 2020-2021 academic year.
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 subjects.
Our aim is to delve ‘deeply’ into specific subject areas to allow our children to become passionate about what they learn.
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 office who will arrange an appointment 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: -
MFL:
At Melbourn, we have two designated MFL teachers who both speak fluent Spanish. We follow a specifically designed curriculum recommended by our local secondary school. This curriculum is chosen to support the children’s progression from Key Stage Two into Key Stage Three. It is important to us that our children are prepared for their next steps in education. In addition to our weekly in class Spanish lessons, we also run a Spanish and Mandarin club. Our Mandarin club is also ran by a teacher from our local secondary school.
Please follow this link for our Spanish curriculum:
www.rachelhawkes.com
Supporting Documents
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.
English
‘The more that you read, the more you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you will go.’ Dr Seuss
EYFS
Children are taught phonics skills through the Read Write Inc (RWI) scheme. The regular assessment and clear scheme ensures progression for all pupils. The children have access to Oxford Reading Tree books 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. Writing is planned around the idea of ‘Talk for Writing’ and allows children to learn and explore stories. This also provides access to high quality vocabulary.
Key Stage 1 Reading
We teach phonics to Year 1 and 2 using the Read Write Inc (RWI) scheme. The children are assessed half termly and taught accordingly with the RWI scheme ensuring progression. The start of each lesson involves learning a new sound, reading, and writing words that contain the new sound. Each new sound is reviewed daily to encourage quick recall and speedy reading. Along with phonics, Year 1 and 2 children access ‘Whole Class Guided Reading’ where they are taught specific reading skills to help them understand what they have read. This has a strong focus on vocabulary and supports our pupils in ‘Closing the Vocabulary Gap’.
We use primarily RWI book bag books to support home reading. This is supported by Big Cat and Oxford reading tree as children progress through school.
Key Stage 2 Reading
Our school aims to make “learning irresistible” and to this end reading lessons encompass activities which promote reading widely for pleasure. Our approach to guided reading means that every child is taught the necessary reading skills for their age group as well as exploring new and exciting vocabulary.
Writing:
Writing is a greatly valued skill at Melbourn and something which we encourage our children to take great pride in.
Writing is taught consistently across our school using expertise from 'The Write Stuff' book. Staff model high quality pieces of writing using the same approach in all classrooms and this is displayed on their working wall. This high quality writing exposure increases the vocabulary of all pupils and allows them to apply this to both their reading and writing. Each lesson is taught in 'learning chunks' with a focus on the sentence structure or vocabulary that could be use to enhance that chunk. Early Years pupils access a similar approach at their level which builds their understanding of vocabulary and increases their sentence structure.
Handwriting it taught three times a week to support children in their writing fluency.
Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG):
The teaching of spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG) is embedded into all writing lessons and often applied in foundation subjetcs. Children in years 5 and 6 are set grammar homework.
All children from year 1 onwards are taught how to edit their own writing and how to collaboratively improve their own and other’s writing.
All children are taught spelling rules (and the exceptions) and given a weekly spelling list to practice at home. All children complete weekly dictations based on the spellings they have learned.
Maths:
At Melbourn Primary School, we strive to ensure that our children become confident, resilient and knowledgeable mathematicians. We dedicate one hour, daily sessions to the teaching of mathematics which follows a consistent structure across the school. With arithmetic and times tables underpinning many areas of mathematics, our curriculum at Melbourn Primary School aims to improve children’s rapid and accurate recall of essential number facts through sufficient, planned opportunities.
Each maths lesson that is taught allows the opportunity for embedding prior knowledge before the teaching of new concepts is modelled, practised and applied to more complex procedures through a progression of Fluency, Problem Solving and Reasoning tasks (Deep, Deeper, Deeper Still – Key Stage One). To ensure that our children understand that ‘maths is everywhere’, there is a strong commitment to linking our mathematical learning to real life concepts and other areas of the curriculum. Where possible, children are exposed to different representations (concrete, pictorial, abstract) of new concepts to challenge their thinking and allow them to make connections between mathematical ideas. The use of concrete manipulatives and other resources are encouraged to support the children in securing a deeper understanding of their learning.
In order for our children to master key concepts and gain a deep understanding, confidence and competence in mathematics, we plan and teach using manageable small steps that are sequential and build on prior knowledge. To achieve this, we follow the robust Scheme of Learning available from White Rose from Year 1 to Year 6. While we appreciate that the White Rose planning structures have been informed by world-class research and maths experts, teaching staff at Melbourn adapt the planning to suit the needs of the pupils in their class.
https://whiterosemaths.com/resources/schemes-of-learning/primary-sols/