Curriculum

Intent:

Our Curriculum for Year 1 – 6 is made up of a number of different subject areas, eg English, Maths, Science, Art etc and we make links between the subjects when it is relevant and appropriate. During the term, we organise a trips out of School if it is appropriate or a visitor to come into School to extend our children’s experiences and add to their cultural capital.  We also have a strong focus on developing vocabulary through our curriculum in order to improve our children’s social mobility and life chances.  As our classes are often of mixed age (years 1&2, years 3&4 and years 5&6) we run our curriculum as a two year rolling program.  This ensures that pupils cover a wide and full curriculum at their phase level.

Each morning, we prioritise the teaching of English and Maths. Phonics is taught every day in Early Years and Key Stage 1. Reading is taught for 30 minutes a day in KS1 and 45 minutes a day in KS2.  These are the building blocks which enable children to access the entire curriculum and important life skills for the future.  Improved numeracy and literacy skills are associated with improved life chances.  We want all of our children to reach their full potential.

In Lower KS2, pupils have a specialist Music Tutor from the Suffolk County Music Service once a week throughout the year, and this year they are being taught to play the guitar, at no cost to parents. Each child has an instrument to take home and practice on.  Pupils have the option to continue their tuition for a further year.

The Reception Class is slightly different as they follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. They have their own Outdoor Area where much of their learning takes place.  Learning here is a mixture of child initiated and adult led tasks.  There is a daily focus on phonics to encourage children to emerge as readers and writers. Children work through play, story telling, experiences and interaction with adults to develop their vocabulary.  We have also developed a Forest School provision to support the entire EYFS curriculum, but in particular for the development of fine and gross motor skills.

In order to further engage our children and deepen their learning experience, each term has a Deep Learning Week when the curriculum is collapsed and we focus an entire week on a particular area.  These weeks are STEM week (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths), Creative week (including Art, Music, History and Geography) and Well-being Week (including PSHE, Citizenship, RE, PE, mindfulness etc).  Children share their learning at the end of the week with their adults.

As we are fortunate to have the Millennium Woods just 5 minutes down the road, we use this wonderful resource throughout the school, with children visiting the woods for cross curricular learning activities.

We keep parents informed about what their children are doing through termly ‘Class Newsletters’ for each class at the beginning of each term, a regular whole School Newsletter, Sharing Assemblies when parents can also look at their child’s work, termly SHARE events, parents evenings in the Autumn and Spring terms and End of Year Reports in July. Children are also expected to read at home, learn their spelling and times tables, and complete homework as appropriate for their age. We warmly encourage parents to be part of their child’s education and offer many opportunities for them to do so.

Our extended curriculum offer includes enrichment experiences again to widen pupils’ experiences and vocabulary.  These include residential experiences, locally (for years 3 and 4) and across the UK and in France for years 5 and 6.  Pupils report that these experiences give them a sense of achievement and improve their independence and resilience.  We also offer all of our pupils the opportunity to experience a world class gymnasium and coaching there each year.  In addition, to develop our children’s ambition and aspiration, they meet an Olympian or Para-Olympian each year.

Below are two downloadable grids which set out the Curriculum coverage at Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2) and Key Stage 2 (Years 3 – 6).

The documents below the grids will tell you what each class is covering over our 2 year rolling programme and also specifically in more detail, what is being covered this term in each class.

Reading Provision at Mendlesham

KS 1 National Curriculum Coverage
Download Document

KS 2 National Curriculum Coverage
Download Document

Early Years Class Long Term Plan
EYFS Curriculum Overview

KS 1 Class Long Term Planning Grids Yr 1 and 2
KS1 Curriculum Overview

Lower KS 2 Class Long Term Planning Grids Yr 3 and 4
Lower Key Stage 2 Curriculum Overview

Upper KS 2 Class Yr 5 and 6 Long Term Planning Grids

Upper Key Stage 2 Curriculum Overview