Birchwood Curriculum
Intent
At Birchwood our whole school curriculum is concerned with the holistic needs of all of our children. Birchwood is committed to teaching the National Curriculum and has developed a localised curriculum that is embedded in our curriculum maps. Our curriculum aims to develop key knowledge across a range of subjects to enable effective learning for all pupils. The curriculum has been designed to be bespoke for Birchwood children: teaching local history, learning about different cultures and ensuring children are equipped with the knowledge to live healthy lifestyles. Birchwood is a place where learning is enjoyable and all children succeed.
The specific aims of our curriculum include: promoting the very highest standards in Literacy, Numeracy, Science and Computing; enabling children to acquire knowledge and key skills across the curriculum; promoting spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and in doing so ensuring high levels of involvement and wellbeing. We want to ensure children have the opportunities to participate in the arts, to grow a knowledge and understanding of the humanities including R.E, to prepare our children for transition to secondary school and the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life.
Implementation
Our curriculum is stimulating, challenging and enriching with the highest aspirations for achievement and progress. We teach the National Curriculum subjects by planning a progressive sequence of learning aimed to improve the children’s ability to: ask questions, investigate, interrogate information, present and argue whilst securing a substantive knowledge in each subject. Our Curriculum is designed to revisit prior knowledge and build upon this to support retention. For each subject, a progression in substantive and disciplinary knowledge, and vocabulary is carefully planned and this is reviewed regularly to ensure that our curriculum design meets the needs of all learners.
At Birchwood our children experience a broad, balanced and extensively developed curriculum enabling them to grow and learn in an environment without prejudice or inequality. We help children develop a sense of identity, promoting fundamental shared values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. We want our children to accept responsibility for their behaviour, show consideration and understand how they can contribute positively to society. Children will be given the opportunity to learn the benefits of physically and emotionally healthy lifestyles, by participating in personal, social and health education.
‘Rich Opportunities and Memorable Experiences’ enable children to explore their interests and abilities through developing and appreciation of the arts, taking part in a wide range of physical activities, developing a sense of self in a supportive environment, experience music through performing, singing and playing instruments and by experiencing social, moral, spiritual and cultural education which broadens children’s awareness and understanding of the world and their place within it.
Impact
Our curriculum is high quality and carefully sequenced to meet the needs of our children. Topics are chosen to enthuse the children, exceed the expectations of the national curriculum and ensure progression across all subjects.
We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods: speaking to pupils about their learning; evidence in books and from practical work; termly teacher assessment and lesson visits.
By the time children leave Birchwood Primary School they will be equipped with the knowledge and learning skills for their futures in a rapidly changing world, recognising the importance of technology, science and communication. They will be ready for the next phase in their education and have a passion for knowledge and learning.
Reading is the gateway to accessing all areas of the wider curriculum. At Birchwood, we value the skill of language as essential to children’s future participation in society, and we have placed the reading National Curriculum and books at the heart of our own school curriculum, with our overall aim being inclusivity. We want all children to be confident, fluent readers who have developed a love of reading. It is vital that our children learn discrete reading skills in a progressive sequence and that we foster a love of reading through developing a positive reading culture at both home and school - reading for pleasure enhances levels of text comprehension, will increase knowledge of grammar, breadth of vocabulary and will ensure better general knowledge.
Our children are confident speakers, listeners, readers and writers and are given opportunities to use and practise these skills in every subject. As a result, our children read widely, are immersed in quality texts and experience a range of audiences, purposes, and forms. Our school curriculum has a two-dimensional focus on word reading and comprehension, which impacts positively on their ability to listen and read.
Phonics and Early Reading at Birchwood
We teach early reading through the systematic, synthetic phonics programme ‘Little Wandle, Letters and Sounds Revised’. Right from the beginning of Reception, children have a daily phonics lesson which follows the progression for Little Wandle, Letters and Sounds Revised and this continues into Year 1 to ensure children become fluent readers.
We teach phonics for 20 minutes a day. In Reception, we build up from 10-minute lessons, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Every Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
At Birchwood, we ensure that all children in school complete phase 6 phonics, as achieving early fluency in decoding is a necessary first step in acquiring the key skill in reading. Little Wandle's Keep Up and Rapid Catch Up programmes are used to support closing the gaps for children.
Structured daily reading sessions across school focus on building children's fluency in reading. Children from Reception to Year 5 have three reading practice sessions a week, in small groups with an adult focusing on developing them as a reader. VIPERS are used across school to support the teaching of content domains.