Our Curriculum
Welcome to our curriculum page, where we hope you will gain an insight into some of the curriculum subjects we teach at Burton upon Stather Primary school. If you would like more information on how our curriculum is designed and what is included, please contact your child(ren's) class teacher or our school office.
Please also visit the individual class pages (under the Children's tab). Here you will find detailed information about each year groups learning, along with lots of pictures too.
We are committed to ensuring that our curriculum offer is broad, engaging, comprehensive and coherent. The full range of core and foundation subjects is carefully mapped so that all children end their primary years having mastered a range of concepts, procedures and skills that fuel a thirst for learning, prepare them for future study and develop an understanding of the world in which they live, particularly within our local community.
Our curriculum aims:
Our Early Years Foundation Stage makes a crucial contribution to a child’s early development and learning. We provide children with a rich variety of teaching and learning experiences that are appropriate to their needs. There is a large emphasis on developing key learning skills such as reading, listening, number and co-operation with others.
Study in mathematics follows the National Curriculum using the long- and medium- term planning and progression model provided by White Rose Maths, however we have adapted these to meet the needs of all our pupils. Teaching is structured in a way that enables children to deeply embed and build upon mathematical concepts by applying their knowledge and skills across a range of contexts. Teaching incorporates a planned sequence and progression of concrete, pictorial and abstract opportunities which support pupils in deepening their conceptual understanding over time. We have recently introduced 'memory starters' which allows pupils to build on their working and long term memory.
Our teaching of Literacy includes phonics (Read, Write, Inc), shared reading, writing, handwriting and SPAG (spelling punctuation and grammar). Writing is taught linked to a text (often from our book spine) to hook the children and extend their knowledge in other curriculum subjects and to also allow children to write for purpose. spelling, punctuation and grammar are taught as an embedded part of the writing sequence to ensure skills are built on over time.
Reading is explicitly taught and closely monitored to ensure that children read widely and successfully. Pupils start their reading journey through a carefully mapped sequence of learning which supports their ability to hear sounds in words (phonological awareness). This prepares pupils well for learning to recognise letters and the sounds they make (phonics) through a systematic synthetic approach. We currently use Read, Write, Inc as a teaching tool. Daily reading opportunities ensure that pupils are given an opportunity to apply their learning (phonics, fluency and/or comprehension) to a key text.
Teachers take time in selecting texts to ensure that they are high quality, capture interest and instil a love of reading both in and beyond the classroom, these can include the use of picture books. Reading and text permeates every aspect of our school’s curriculum and the majority of topics are based around a text.
Our thematic approach to the teaching of the curriculum brings together our teaching in Science, Geography, History and the other foundation subjects allowing links to be made where they promote deeper understanding and/or opportunities for pupils to deepen knowledge so that pupils will know more and remember more. As children progress throughout their primary years, relevant factual and conceptual links are made between themes.
Underpinning each creative theme or unit of work is a core body of knowledge that is systematically taught, revised and revisited at distance to ensure that learning is committed to long-term memory. This knowledge empowers children: it gives them a sense of being knowledgeable, allows them to mediate social and cultural references, builds on their understanding of the world and provides valuable content for writing and reading across the curriculum. The curriculum also plans in opportunities for children to master processes and skills, undertaking activities relevant to their discipline.
Spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, as well as modern British values are discretely woven into the curriculum, with links being seeded to ensure these values are revisited and consolidated. Planned opportunities to address key concepts/relevant and topical issues/current national and international news stories occur through school assemblies, daily class discussions/debate, daily Newsround and through the PSHE (personal, social, health and economic), RSE (relationship and sex education) and RE (religious education) curriculums. These aspects are given a high priority across the curriculum because we are committed to preparing children for life beyond our school.
Interventions and additional, individualised classroom support strategies are arranged for pupils who need further assistance to reach their full academic potential. Personalised learning opportunities are carefully timetabled to ensure that pupils who need additional support, receive a broad and balanced curriculum.
Mastery Approach to Teaching and Learning
The mastery learning model forms the basis of our approach to teaching and learning at Burton upon Stather Primary. This means spending greater time going into depth about a subject as opposed to racing through the things that all children ‘should’ know. As a primary school, it is our duty to ensure that children have a concrete understanding of subject knowledge and skills taught as well as being emotionally resilient and ready for secondary school.
Now, we have the confidence to take learning at a steadier and deeper pace, ensuring children are not left behind, as well as providing deeper and richer experiences for children who are above the national expectation for their age.
We focus on allowing as many children as possible to achieve what is expected of their age group and not going beyond this. Evidence shows that children need to be able to understand a concept, apply it in a range of situations and then be creative to really understand it. Simply going beyond their age group does not guarantee they understand something at a ‘mastery’ level.
At our school no child will be taught content from the year group above them, they will spend time becoming true masters of content, applying and being creative with new knowledge and skills in multiple ways.
In short, this means working towards:
All of this means that you may see a change in the way we teach and assess your child, most notably will be in how we organise your child’s learning and how we report their progress to you.
We will be doing more of this:
This approach is seen as best practice. It is promoted by the government and seen as the best way to deliver the new, more challenging national curriculum.
NB* We are a fully inclusive school and ensure that all pupils are making progress but we are aware that for some pupils with SEND requirements, the amount of effort put in is just as important as the academic standards reached. We consider meaningful ways of measuring all aspects of progress including communication, social skills, physical development, resilience and independence.