Our Curriculum
At Rackenford C of E VA Primary School, we believe that a curriculum fit for the 21stcentury must be broad, balanced and enriched with exciting, relevant experiences that fire children’s imaginations and give them the confidence to face new challenges and solve problems.
Our curriculum is in line with the statutory new National Curriculum, underpinned by our Christian foundation. It prepares our children for a constantly changing world, giving them the skills to contribute positively to society and live fulfilling and healthy lives.
Our school values are: trust, respect, friendship, perseverance, forgiveness, truthfulness and compassion. They are at the heart of all that we do.
Our curriculum provides children with the opportunity to:
- Enjoy the challenge and adventure of learning
- Follow their own interests and curiosities
- Find out how they learn and develop learning powers, such as ‘resilience’ and ‘perseverance’ to enable them to become life-long, independent learners
- Master a range of skills and develop in-depth knowledge and understanding
- Communicate and interact effectively and confidently with others and discover the power of collaboration
- Celebrate the uniqueness of everyone and the values, beliefs and culture of others
- Make a positive contribution to the school, local and wider community
- Become reflective learners, excited by their own potential and motivated to achieve their best.
Intent, Implementation and Impact Statements
The curriculum at Rackenford Primary School:
Curriculum Maps
Download the Curriculum Maps for Reception,Years 1 & 2,Years 3 & 4 and Years 5 & 6
In EYFS, year 1 and 2 our program of learning phonics is based upon the Little Wandel publication but it has been adjusted to meet the increased expectations and requirements of the new national curriculum. It covers the reading and writing of sounds and words and involves both new learning and revision of previous learning in every session.
If you would like to know what sounds your child is learning about this week then please ask your child’s class teacher.
In year 2-6, we develop children’s spelling further by using the No Nonsense Spelling materials designed by the Literacy team at Babcock LDP and published by Raintree. The program is easy to use, flexible and comprehensive. It enables us to implement an effective spelling teaching program that prepares the children for their move into Key Stage 3.
In Early Years and Key Stage One our children choose book banded reading books that relate to their current reading level. There is a good selection of books in each coloured band so that the children are able to access a variety of genres. We try to hear the children read as often as possible in the school day but due to the numbers of children and the demands of the curriculum it isn’t possible to do this as regularly as we would like. We therefore really encourage parents to take an active part in this by reading with their children each day after school.
In Key Stage Two, the children continue to access book banded reading materials until they are a level to become a free reader. At this point they are able, with support, to choose appropriate reading materials from the library. Teachers will also provide children with appropriate levelled reading books in class during shared and guided reading sessions. These sessions will tend to include an opportunity for the children to read, discuss and answer questions about the text.
In EYFS, KS1 and KS2 we use White Rose Maths as the basis for our Maths curriculum. We will sometimes change the order of the blocks to accommodate mixed age classes but we ensure that all blocks are covered over the academic year. If you would like to know what your child is currently learning in Maths please ask your child’s teacher.
We supplement the White Rose lessons with other resources such as Nrich and NCETM to ensure that pupils have opportunities to apply their knowledge to problem solving and reasoning scenarios. This also ensures that we are using a Mastery approach to teaching Maths. Pupils are regularly assessed to idenfity their needs within each area so that lessons can be planned and adjusted accordingly.
We continue to target arithmetic skills in all our sessions and assessments as well as continuing to use TT Rock Stars in KS2 to support children’s learning at home.
As a maintained school we have an obligation to teach children from Year 1 to Year 6 about aspects of RSE and we feel it is important that as a school we are clear about what that entails. The mention of the words, ‘Sex education’ can create unnecessary anxiety for parents and carers and we want to reassure you that the focus of much RSE in primary school is broader than you might think, focusing more so on the relationship’s aspect.
We adopted the JIGSAW scheme of work in 2020 in order to fulfil this statutory requirement and we began trailing out some of the units with pupils covering ‘Being me in my World’, ‘Celebrating Differences’ and ‘Dreams and Goals’. The JIGSAW scheme covers issues such as Building self-esteem, recognising feelings and emotions, Healthy friendships, Differences and similarities between girls and boys and challenging stereotypes, Rights & Responsibilities and Growing and changing.
Throughout the year we cover different aspects of the JIGSAW curriculum through six broad topics- Being me in my World, Celebrating Difference (autumn term) Dreams & Goals, Healthy Me (spring term) Relationships and Changing Me (summer term) A focus on Relationships is covered within each topic, with the ‘Changing Me’ topic covering most of the Sex Education aspects. The whole school covers the same unit at the same time and each unit starts with a whole school assembly.
As a parent or carer, you do have the right to request your child is removed from parts of the sex education programme, but we feel confident that the content is both relevant and appropriate for our age group. It is important to clarify that withdrawal of your child would only be considered only for content that is not part of the statutory science curriculum.
To help you understand what will be taught, please see the below Jigsaw leaflets outlining further detail along with our PSHE/RSE policy.
RSHE A Guide for Parents and Carers leaflet 2020
Rackenford Primary School’s Music Development Plan is a summary of how our school delivers music education to all our pupils across three areas – curriculum music, co-curricular provision and musical experiences – and what changes we are planning in future years. This information is to help pupils and parents or carers understand what our school offers and who we work with to support our pupils’ music education.
If you wish to find out more about our curriculum, please ask your child’s teacher.