Primary Provision
Bournville Primary Curriculum
Here at Bournville Primary, the aim of our curriculum is to provide pupils with a meaningful, content-rich education, that will develop their cultural literacy and ensure excellent academic achievement.
Our Vision
Over the next year we will be working to ensure our curriculum has been designed forwards, from the Early Years Foundation Stage all the way through to GCSE study, to ensure pupils are equipped with the necessary knowledge, vocabulary, skills and understanding to thrive in society when they leave Bournville. We want our pupils to develop an interest in and an understanding of the world from which their ancestors came and be inquisitive about and prepared for the world which has yet to be revealed to them.
At present the curriculum is thematic and is currently being redesigned at KS1 and KS2 around ‘Big Questions’, to provide cross-curricular links which will deepen pupils’ understanding and spark their curiosity.
All pupils are taught the full-breadth of the National Curriculum by their class teacher. However KS3 and KS4 subject specialists also deliver aspects of the wider curriculum to KS1 and KS2, such as Spanish, Music, Art, PE, Science and DT. We are committed to developing a creative curriculum, which we believe is integral to our overall academic achievement. We offer a good range of after school clubs, to really enhance our wider curriculum offer.
Our curriculum will support our pupils to eventually become adults who can read easily, fluently, with good understanding and who have gained the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information. Through our carefully planned themes, well-chosen resources and trips carefully chosen to enhance our curriculum, we will foster in our pupils, an appreciation of our rich and varied literary heritage.
All children experience a full range of opportunities planned for 2D and 3D artwork, as well as developing an appreciation of art in our own and other cultures. Our children have opportunities to access the secondary provision through their art studios and specialist teachers to further their knowledge and learning in the subject area. Each half term we have a creative day, when we devote a whole day to a particular aspect of Art, which has been identified for a whole school approach. In this way we ensure that skill progression is clear and embedded across the school, and that high quality pieces of art are completed by the end of the day.
At Bournville we understand the important role that computing plays in education today. We aim to ensure that children are technology competent and that they are supported and challenged. Pupils are taught the many uses of computing, including word processing, multimedia, presentation, coding, programming, email and internet use.
E-safety is an important topic that is integral to the teaching, learning and everyday life at Bournville School. The e-safety lessons held in school aim to inform and allow children to reflect upon the safe uses of all technology.
The National Curriculum requires that children look at real-life problems, propose solutions, model these, evaluate them and modify them. We plan such opportunities across the whole curriculum. This includes sewing and cooking as well as engineering aspects of technology. Our children have opportunities to access the secondary provision through their technology classrooms and specialist teachers to further their knowledge and learning in this subject area. We aim to ensure that skill progression is closely planned and monitored, enabling children to become increasingly independent and adept. Design Technology may be taught within the context of a theme if relevant or a stand alone topic to ensure quality and progression of knowledge, understanding and skills. Each half term we have a creative day, when we devote a whole day to a particular aspect of Design Technology, which has been identified for a whole school approach. In this way we ensure that skill progression is clear and embedded across the school, and that high quality pieces of Design Technology are completed by the end of the day.
Speaking and Listening
Acquisition of a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language, is at the heart of our English curriculum. Pupils writing clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences, are the outcomes we expect from the curriculum here at Bournville. Using discussion in order to learn, across the wider curriculum, will support our pupils to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas. We want our pupils to become competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate, ready for their world beyond our school.
Reading: Our Pedagogy.
Learning to read is one of the most important things our children will learn at Bournville. We know that everything else they will do, will depend on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible. We want our children to love reading – and to want to read for themselves, for both pleasure and information. This is why we work hard to make sure children develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read. Through our chosen resources, which enhance our curriculum, we will foster in our pupils, an appreciation of our rich and varied literary heritage. We want our pupils to eventually become adults who can read easily, fluently, with good understanding and who have gained the habit of reading widely and often.
Phonics
We start in Reception, using the ‘Read Write Inc’ phonics programme. Children learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps them learn to spell well. There are daily phonics activities either through continuous provision or small group phonics sessions. We make sure that each child is able to progress through each phase of sounds, words and alien words, at an individual rate to enable confident readers to make progress more quickly. In Years 1 and 2, we are able to timetable phonics teaching at a consistent time, to enable best use of our resources and to benefit from flexible groupings
Once children can blend sounds together to read words, they practise reading books that match the phonics they know. When they start to believe they can read, this does wonders for their confidence! In Reception, we do guided reading, using our ‘Big Cat’ reading books. These books go up in levels based on the children’s ability. Once the baseline is complete, each child is given a reading book and a library book to take home. The reading books vary, depending on the reading ability of each child. Some may have picture books and others will have books with words.
We have a range of book schemes to suit the ability of each child: Oxford reading Tree, Early reader, Reading Champion , Biff, Chip and Kipper and Engage Literacy. Some older children will continue to access Read Write Inc groups if they need further consolidation and development of reading skills. We check our children’s reading skills regularly so we that we can ensure they are in the right group. Children will move to a different group if they are making faster progress.
Further information can be found here http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/
Reading for Meaning
We use whole class shared reading as our primary way to teach reading for meaning. This takes place for 30 minutes every day, from Year 1 in the Summer Term 2 and we are proud of the time we have dedicated to this on our timetable! From Reception upwards, classes read shared texts where reading and writing combine, providing children with a deeper understanding of texts. Shared reading allows children to receive high quality input from the class teacher on a daily basis during shared reading sessions. High quality questioning and follow up work develops the children’s skills in inference and deduction, expands their understanding of challenging vocabulary and gives opportunity for them to consider their own responses to a text, providing evidence for their ideas. Books are carefully chosen to meet the needs and interests of the cohort as well as compliment and enhance our wider curriculum, with history, geography and social themes particularly popular with our pupils. We choose texts which will inspire our children to be writers. We make sure that the children have the best possible books available to them. We believe that providing greater access to a wide range of brilliantly written, content-appropriate, engaging REAL books is the single most effective way of improving standards of receptive and expressive language in children – in terms of expanding vocabulary, deepening comprehension, sharpening authorial technique and nurturing a love of stories and knowledge. Through reading we aim to increase a child’s ability to sustain focus. At a time when it is becoming harder and harder to achieve that in a society that fractures our concentration and fragments our time, we see reading as a way of changing this. By reading as a community in class- we are able to engage and normalise this social state of sustained focus. We read together. We annotate. We discuss. We write. We read and we reflect and we enjoy it. This sustained focus is one which we strive for across the whole school. In Key Stage 2, children also follow the Accelerated Reader Scheme to support their reading and are able to take AR banded books from the school library to read.
Reading to an Adult
All children read to an adult at least once each week. Our PP children are heard read additionally each week or provided with opportunities to enrich their reading if they are good readers. Our children read books at an appropriate level for them, based on their reading age: EYFS and KS1 WRI books and a combination of reading schemes. We use Accelerated Reader at KS2 to support this and motivate our children to want to read regularly at home and at school.We have volunteers who are helping children to develop a love of reading.
The Library
Our children have a regular weekly slot to change their home reading book in our beautiful library, plus extra slots are available at lunchtimes and playtimes for those enthusiastic readers and devourers of books.
Home School Partnership
This is the basis for our collaboration with parents: We promise to read with our children everyday and we expect our parents and carers to do the same. Pupils have access to a ‘library’ collection of books (currently held within each classroom) and are encouraged to read at least three times weekly at home. Our parents are invited in to sit in on a phonics lesson each week, if their child is in Reception or Year 1, so they can learn how best to support their child at home to learn their sounds and start to blend them so that they can read words. We are also planning this year, to invite our parents across the school, to experience the principles of shared reading. Parents are invited in to share their child’s library time with them and in this way we build on the love of reading together for pleasure.
Class Novel
Each class teacher reads for at least 10 minutes every day, sharing a class novel so the children get to know and love all sorts of stories, poetry and information books. This helps to extend children’s vocabulary and comprehension, as well as supporting their writing. Making reading fun is important! We will come across far more adventurous words than we will in the early reading books and this will help our children to grow a vast vocabulary and develop a deeper understanding of different stories
Difficulties with Reading
We find out very quickly if a child is finding reading difficult. If we have any concerns about a child’s reading, we will talk to parents and carers about this. If they need more help, we may nove them to a different, smaller group or provide extra 1:1 support. This may include using Toe by Toe which aims to connect individual letters to words. Repetition is an important part. We build upon the achievements each day, as well as re-capping on the knowledge that has been learnt so far.
Writing
As a springboard to writing, we use high quality texts which inspire children to emulate styles as they begin to develop a style of their own. We search for ways to spark children’s curiosity and to enthuse and engage them in their learning of how to write. Teachers carefully plan and provide a context and purpose for their children’s writing. We want our children to be confident and creative writers, with strong ideas of their own as well as an innate desire to write for pleasure. We strive to ensure our children develop the skills needed to produce writing which is well presented, cohesive and of a quality that they are proud of. Through the use of the most effective principles of ‘Talk for Writing’, alongside our structured teaching of the writing process, our young writers experience a broad range of texts which will stimulate them to write with skill and confidence in subjects across the curriculum. We encourage them to read their own writing for enjoyment; to read aloud to others as well as providing an audience for the writing of their peers.
Spelling is regarded as important and strategies for teaching accurate spelling are used in all year groups. Grammar is taught both explicitly and also within the context of writing lessons so that children get opportunities to apply what they have learnt in English but also in subjects across the wider curriculum such as in Science, History, Geography and RE.
Play is an essential part of every child’s life and is vital for the enjoyment of childhood as well as social, emotional, intellectual and physical development.
Here at Bournville Primary Provision we actively follow the children’s interests. This means we observe the children whilst they are actively engaged in purposeful play.
Throughout the year the team observe, assess and plan for the children and meet their needs across the seven areas of learning through the characteristics of effective learning. This is thread throughout each and every area of learning. We plan and reflect on how children learn and understand each child is unique. We celebrate and nurture this.
Children are taught through the Seven Areas of Learning.
These are (changed all the letters to capital letters)
- Communication and Language
- Physical Development
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the World
- Expressive Arts and Design
Our high quality Geography education will inspire in pupils, a curiosity and fascination about their world, the wider world and the people of the world that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. We want to equip our pupils with knowledge and understanding about the diversity of places, people and cultures. This will include developing an empathetic undertanding of the finite nature of the Earth’s resources and the fine balance between natural and human environments. This together with an ever deepening understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes and how we can ensure a sustainable future for all inhabitants of the Earth, is what we hope embed in our pupils by the end of Key Stage 2. Geography is taught, as an explicit subject within the context of a theme. We follow the National Curriculum and where possible also relate the units of work in Geography to other subject areas such as English, Art, Science and DT. We place emphasis on delivering a curriculum which allows children to acquire skills and understanding in a progressive manner . This includes a clear focus and expectation that as much field work as possible will take place in order to really enhance and deliver a meaningful and purposeful Geography curriculum. Our homework projects allow children further opportunity to explore Geography independently.
We want our pupils to develop an interest in and an understanding of the world from which their ancestors came and be inquisitive about and prepared for the world which has yet to be revealed to them. Our vision is that the teaching of history gives pupils an understanding of the past through learning about human achievements and experiences. They will investigate sources such as pictures, stories, writing and artefacts to ask and answer questions about the past and how these impact the world we live in today. We will examine the children’s own personal history, and develop their sense of chronology throughout the study of topics through Key Stages 1 and 2. We aim to give our children a history curriculum which enables them to become confident, creative and independent learners. We seek to broaden our children’s real-life experiences both inside and outside of school through educational visits, visitors, experimentation, exploration and discovery. We believe that within history lessons, our children acquire a range of knowledge and skills, which they can then apply to other subjects and in a variety of situations.
We want our pupils to develop a love for and an enjoyment of the wonders of the mathematical world, which will involve spotting patterns, making connections, and finding new ways of looking at things. We aim for our pupils to become creative mathematicians who can confidently play with ideas, draw pictures, have the courage to experiment and ask good questions. Our Maths’ curriculum will ensure activities focus on developing problem solving, and encourage exploration and discussion. These rich mathematical tasks will support our pupils to build perseverance and mathematical reasoning alongside mathematical fluency in the fundamentals of mathematics and an ever deepening conceptual understanding. At Bournville Primary, pupils follow the ‘White Rose Maths’ scheme of work. This is aligned to the National Curriculum. White Rose is influenced, inspired and informed by the work of leading maths researchers and practitioners across the world. The white Rose philosophy is that everyone can do maths. At Bournville the teaching of maths ensures deep understanding, confidence and competence in maths and creates a maths culture that produces strong, secure learning and real progress. Maths lessons at Bournville in both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 offer opportunities for gaining fluency in mathematical concepts, reasoning about numbers and solving a range of problems by applying the knowledge they have gained enabling children to become independent, reflective thinkers.
It is our vision to inspire and encourage our children to develop their creativity through music. The children will be given the opportunity to develop a range of skills, such as thinking, motor coordination, and language, in lessons that include appreciation of all kinds of music, singing, learning to play instruments, composing and performing. Furthermore, children will use music to learn about a range of cultures, backgrounds and celebrate diversity in our community. Music will also enable our children to build their confidence and support their mental health and wellbeing, by expressing their emotions through sound. It is our aim to give our pupils the opportunity to learn a range of musical instruments which will support them in developing a growth mind set. At present, many children benefit from lessons taught by The Music Service, where they are able to experience learning how to play a range of instruments including violin, viola, brass and recorder. Our children have opportunities to access the secondary provision through their music studios and specialist teachers to further their knowledge and learning in this subject area.
We believe that the Physical Education Curriculum makes a significant contribution to a child’s physical, emotional, intellectual and personal development. Children’s feelings about their physical ability and their attitude to sport will often carry over into adolescence and adult life. We aim to provide an enjoyable, satisfying and balanced programme, which will develop these skills and attitudes conducive to involvement in an active and healthy lifestyle.
We aim to promote enjoyment of a physical activity and children take part regularly in gymnastics, fitness exercises, games and team games of all sorts, both indoors and outdoors. Swimming is available to all children in Year 4. We have a range of after school clubs delivered by specialist sports coaches and at lunchtimes by teachers. Children in Reception and Year 1 have access to balance bikes to develop their skill in riding a bike from an early age. Our children have opportunities to access the secondary provision through their PE halls and equipment and specialist teachers to further their knowledge and learning in this subject area.
At Bournville School Primary, we want all of our children to grow up healthy, safe and happy. Our Relationships and Health Education lessons aim to provide all children with the building blocks they need to form positive, safe and healthy relationships with others. With the support of our Jigsaw PSHE lessons, children will be taught age appropriate sessions where they will examine important issues such as: what a healthy relationship is, what family means, how families can be different, what a friendship is and how to stay safe online. Depending on the age of the child, they will also be taught about mental wellbeing, internet safety, healthy eating, facts and risks associated with alcohol, tobacco and drugs, physical health and fitness, and the changing adolescent body.
When children reach Year 5 and 6, they will also take part in Sex Education lessons where they begin to learn about the changing effects of puberty, the differences between boys’ and girls’ bodies and the correct names and purposes for each body part. We believe this to be an important part of safeguarding children and helping them to prepare for adulthood.
As a parent, you reserve the right to withdraw your child from Sex Education lessons but they cannot be withdrawn from the Relationships and Health Education lessons that form part of the curriculum. If you have further questions or queries then please feel free to contact school to speak to staff further.
Our curriculum for RE promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and prepares pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities, and experiences of adult life. Pupils are viewed holistically and the teaching of RE develops pupils capacities in thinking, empathy, responsibility as they learn about different religious traditions and from faith.
Any parent has the right to request that their child be withdrawn from all or part of religious education but we would ask that parents wishing to do so come to school to discuss with us the full implications of withdrawal from this important part of the curriculum. To help parents we always try to inform them of any visits or activities which may be more sensitive in this area.
We believe in exposing children to a Science curriculum that will enable them to confidently explore and discover the fascinating world around us. Children will have exciting, hands on experiences that encourage their natural curiosity and questioning, in order to gain a deep understanding of the scientific world. We will expose the children to stimulating and challenging experiences, which secure skill progression and which enable them to develop their scientific vocabulary and understanding. Alongside a curriculum which is rich in scientific knowledge, the children are taught to ‘work scientifically’; developing skills such as prediction, recording results and making conclusions. Science topics are arranged so that all areas of National Curriculum science are revisited every year and children’s knowledge and understanding is checked frequently and repeatedly in order to embed and consolidate deep learning.
Our vision for the Spanish curriculum at Bournville School Primary, is that children are taught to develop an interest in learning another language in a way that is enjoyable and stimulating. We encourage children’s confidence to speak Spanish in everyday situations. We help our children develop their awareness of cultural differences in another country. We strive to embed the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills necessary to enable children to use and apply their Spanish learning in a variety of contexts and lay the foundations for future language learning, as they transition to each new key stage. As citizens of the UK’s second largest city, which is ethnically and culturally diverse, it is important to foster in our pupils a respect and interest in other cultures.
We promote the use of homework and see it as a valuable tool in developing and expanding academic achievement. Homework is used to extend school learning, by using some time out of school to improve academic attainment and to develop the independence and self-discipline required for successful future study. Our aim is to engage parents/carers in the learning process and to utilise resources for learning, of all kinds, in the home.
Each child in school is set homework each half term in the form of a topic based range of activities. Children are asked to earn ten points each half term through independently choosing their own tasks to complete. Children are also asked to complete daily reading with their parents / carers. Parents may also support their child to learn their times tables at home, through the use of Times Tables Rock Stars. Spellings are taught in school by teachers and tested weekly in the usual way.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-primary-curriculum
Knowledge Organisers:
Research shows that children have a better understanding of what they are learning, if they commit core knowledge to memory. In order to support our children to make links and embed knowledge within their long term memory, we will be sending out ‘Knowledge Organisers’, each half term.
This is a document that contains all the key facts and vocabulary that children need to learn for that topic. We encourage children to learn this knowledge off-by-heart. This will allow them to grapple with more complex ideas and questions in lessons.
By sharing these ‘Knowledge Organisers’ with you, we are hoping that everyone knows exactly what is being taught, and what the children need to learn.
We are currently updating the Knowledge Organisers that we issue and will publish them on our website from January 2022.
