Curriculum
We believe that all our pupils deserve and are entitled to the best that we can offer and that we can make this provision across all elements of our curriculum. We provide our pupils with a wide spectrum of academic, physical, spiritual, moral, social and cultural learning experiences that enrich their lives and give them the confidence and skills for taking their next steps.
We believe that all our pupils, particularly those with SEND, or who are otherwise disadvantaged, should feel confident and experience the feeling of accomplishment in a wide range of areas. We intend our curriculum, therefore, to give our pupils an excellent mix of opportunities for academic and personal development. We attach equal importance to core and foundation subjects and to physical and mental wellbeing. Spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, along with a well-planned and structured programme of personal development, underpin all our work and are monitored as closely as National Curriculum subjects. We balance the requirements for pupils to reach and exceed national expectations in the core subjects with our wider curricular aims of providing a full spectrum of enriched learning experiences. As a result, our pupils thrive and flourish.
For all pupils every year, we provide a range of focused activity weeks such as Arts, Healthy Living and Science as well as visits to the prestigious Cheltenham Literature and Science festivals. All classes arrange trips and visits to local communities and places of worship including Withington Church, Gloucester Cathedral, and Cheltenham’s Hindu Temple, Synagogue and Mosque. From time to time, the School Council devises, organises and implements whole-school initiatives – most recently major cake sale to raise money for school.
Each term we send out topic plans to enable parents to see how all curriculum areas link together, through a themed topic approach. These topic plans have detailed information of all foundation subject areas and objectives pupils will be taught within that year.
We plan our curriculum to accommodate the different mixed year groups classes. This ensures children cover all National Curriculum objectives as they progress through the school.
Many of our curriculum subjects are taught within two year rolling programmes: English, Science, RE, PHSE, computing and French. Maths is taught in single year groups. This means that for many parts of the week the children are in small, tailored groups.
The school complies with the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 to ensure the curriculum is fully accessible for those with disabilities or special educational needs. Where appropriate we adapt the curriculum to best meet the needs of all our learners and fulfil our statutory duties.
EYFS and KS1 Reading Schemes and Phonics
Phonics is taught across Reception and Year 1 and we use the DfE validated Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) programme 'Unlocking Letters and Sounds' to do this. We use ‘Big Cat Books' which are fully decodable and aligned directly with the phonics scheme and ensure that children are reading the sounds in line with their learning. This ensures all pupils progress from decoding words to reading fluently and for pleasure.
For more information regarding the National Curriculum, please click here.