Our Curriculum Vision and Intent

At Hurstbourne Tarrant Church of England Primary School, we believe our curriculum should:

• Be purposeful with clear outcomes.
• Build on our Christian Values of Respect, Honesty, Care and Love – we aim for these to underpin everything we do!
• Develop strong learning behaviours through our Learning Toolbox which develops:

        - Collaboration

        - Communication

        - Confidence

        - Independence

        - Perseverance

        - Reflection.

• Encourage children to be curious, take risks and explore concepts.
• Be inclusive for all children.
• Encourage parents to be part of their child’s learning journey.
• Allow children to reflect on the world around us and develop a sense of global issues.
• Develop a ‘love of learning and a love of life!’

Subject Knowledge

We believe it is important for children to be aware about the subject they are learning and we aim to be explicit about this. The substance of our curriculum needs to provide a strong and purposeful understanding of subject knowledge, concepts and overarching ideas. We therefore recognise the need to be subject specific in our purpose and aims, following the statutory guidance in the National Curriculum as our starting point. The learning behaviours and skills we aim to foster in our children do not stand alone from the knowledge they are being taught. It is therefore key that children are taught subject-specific skills and subject-specific terminology and are able to use them with confidence. We aim to provide over learning of key concepts to enable children to achieve deeper learning and make purposeful connections and links.

Curriculum Coherence

For our curriculum to meet the needs of the learners in our care, we believe it is essential for our curriculum to embody a sense of coherence. We work hard to ensure the links and threads of each learning opportunity are woven to fit together into a ‘bigger picture’ so children know what they are learning and why they are learning it.  We recognise that our curriculum needs to be appropriately demanding to ensure deep learning takes place.

Implementation

We do this by:

• Using a curriculum map that is on a 2 year cycle (except Early Years) and this will constantly be evolving.
• Topics being naturally led by Geography/History or Science in Partnership with English supported by Art and Design Technology.
• Teaching Maths/PE/RE/PSHE/Music and French discretely although they can lead topics in their own right.
• Ensuring Computing will be an application in the topics unless it is a main subject.
• Ensuring our Christian Values are linked to each topic.
• Using key questions as the basis of planning each topic. Children will also develop their own questions during a ‘Knowledge Harvest.’
• Planning 3 home-learning projects across the year in addition to standard homework.
• Seeking to organise an educational visit where this suits the topic.
• Inviting visitors to our school to support the topic work.
• Inviting parents to most topic outcomes which can take the form of sharing of work, class assemblies or presentations.
• Sending a topic overview letter which will also be posted on the class pages of the website.
• Completing an evaluation of each topic.
• Ensuring there is to be an exciting range of hooks and outcomes for the topic.
• Ensuring the classroom environment reflects the current topic.
• Planning whole class debates using Philosophy For Children (P4C) methodology.
• Planning whole-school projects across the school year e.g. book week, art week, Safer Internet Day, Ethos Day etc.

Each subject has an overarching implementation ‘Intent’ statement as well as a progression of skills document across KS1 and KS2 to ensure coverage and appropriate pitch. These documents give further detail to what is taught and how it is delivered. Please click on the subject icons below to view these statements.

Phonics and Reading Curriculum Implementation

We teach phonics through the Read and Write Inc Scheme. In Year R and Key Stage One, phonics is taught daily for approximately thirty minutes per day.  Work within the classroom builds on the sounds taught during the phonics sessions and a reading book is sent home that links directly to the sound being taught that week. Children can also access the e-book which has an activity linked to it as well. Challenge books are also available for children to take home to further develop their love of reading. Phonics teaching is re-enforced throughout the curriculum through the use of sound mats and direct teaching. We use a wide range of reading books and ensure a variety of both fiction and non-fiction books are available. The sequence of reading books children work through are designed to provide a cumulative progression in their phonic knowledge and reflect the teaching of phonics in our Early Years and Key Stage One classrooms.  Fluent readers are offered a selection of ‘free reading’ books from our well-stocked library.  We aim to provide a rich and wide-ranging choice of texts for our children to have access to including stories, poems, rhymes and non-narrative books. We also use the School’s Library Service who supply a wide range of books that support the delivery of our curriculum. Reading books are taken home and parents are encouraged to support daily reading at home. Pupils are rewarded through the Home Reading Challenge, receiving certificates and badges when they reach key milestones. Parents are supported in this through reading and phonics workshops.

For more detail about each topic, please look at the Class Pages where you can find what your child will be learning each half term.