Curriculum Statement

Intent

Our school is a place where everyone is treated equally, encouraged and respected. We believe that all children should be able to achieve their full potential academically, socially and emotionally. We are committed to our school being a safe and inclusive place where learning is nurtured and encouraged in a happy, caring and fun environment. We all work for our school to be a happy place where good behaviour is expected and all children enjoy their educational journey. At Great Chart Primary School we believe in nothing but the best! 

At Great Chart Primary School we intend that our curriculum educates all the children in knowledge, skills and understanding to be effective, inquisitive, curious, independent learners and influence their wider thinking across all areas of the curriculum.  We wish our children to Believe in themselves and their abilities and capabilities, to Belong to the school learning community and the wider community and to Become successful in their academic career and beyond. 

Implementation

In EYFS children experience the 7 areas of learning through a balance of whole class/group teaching and play based learning.  This is through the children’s interests, themes, continuous provision activities and phonics. Learning is carefully planned by the staff to support early reading, writing, mathematics and language development as well as social skills. 

At Great Chart  Primary School we encourage children to demonstrate their attitudes and behaviours to learning through the Characteristics of Effective Learning.  Our curriculum is designed to recognise their prior learning by providing first hand learning experiences and allowing the children to develop interpersonal skills, build resilience and become creative, critical thinkers to enable them to challenge themselves. We ensure the content of the curriculum is taught in a logical progression so that children build on prior learning.

We understand to maintain high standards of quality first teaching we have to invest in our staff by providing high quality CPD to match the current needs of the staff and also to match the needs of our children.   Teachers in EYFS create an environment to match the needs and skill levels of our children and use their own teacher assessments and gap analysis to inform their planning and the quality provision. We recognise that reading is a key to all other learning and ensure quality phonic sessions are being taught daily using the whole school approach of Letters and Sounds with children’s reading books matching their phonic ability as well as reading aloud to the children, telling stories and rhymes.  We encourage parents to read with their child and to recognise the importance of reading to their child on a daily basis to promote an enjoyment and love of reading. We also recognise that children need a vast range of vocabulary in order to succeed in life. This is taught explicitly through pre teaching sessions, S&L interventions.

At this stage in a child’s life learning through play is vital, we use the environment to ensure their needs are met through continuous provision, enhanced provision and following their interests.  Staff teach an objective through whole class, small group teaching and going into provision to observe children’s play and move learning forward at that point. They record ‘snapshot’ evidence of children’s learning to build an overall picture and set next steps for learning.  Formative assessment takes place within every session and helps teachers to identify any children that needs more support to achieve the objective and those that need challenging. This may be instantaneous if appropriate. Although EYFS has a separate curriculum we are keen to make sure our children are prepared for the next chapter in their school life. At Great Chart we believe the enjoyment of the curriculum promotes achievement, confidence and good behaviour.  Our children feel safe to try new things.

IMPACT

The EYFS curriculum ensures that the needs of individual children including SEND and disadvantaged, and small groups of children, can be met within the environment of high quality teaching supported by targeted interventions where appropriate.  In this way it can be seen to be impacting in a very positive way on pupil outcomes and prepares them for the next phase in school. We teach our children to believe in themselves, belong to the school and wider community and become anything they wish to.

At Great Chart, we value the importance of developing the children’s knowledge, together with their skills. As a result of this our pupils achieve well, gaining excellent results which will prepare them to be school ready.