'We were all delighted with your wonderful children, how good they were and how well they participated.'
School Visitor
Curriculum Statement
| CURRICULUM STATEMENT |
| INTENT Our curriculum sits at the centre of everything we do at Somerford Primary School. It is underpinned by our school values. We want children to experience a broad, rich and challenging curriculum, but crucially to ENJOY what they are learning. In doing so they will ACHIEVE regular success both in and out of the classroom. We also want them to ASPIRE to be active contributors to society and ultimately to be the best version of themselves in the future. Our curriculum is designed to meet the needs of all our learners. Building upon a solid foundation stage and focussing on securing basic skills, it represents a coherent, sequenced body of knowledge and essential skills which are interconnected, where a link is appropriate and not forced. Whilst encompassing all the elements of the National Curriculum, it is also intentionally designed to build cultural capital and address some of the particular challenges faced by many children in our school, including significant levels of disadvantage and SEN. Ultimately, we want our curriculum to support children to become confident, independent and resilient learners, who are equipped to succeed in secondary school and beyond into future careers we cannot yet fully imagine. IMPLEMENTATION The engagement of children is key for them to ENJOY their learning. We also recognise the importance of high quality feedback on the progress of children through our curriculum. Our feedback policy actively supports the delivery of our curriculum. The successful delivery of our curriculum is supported by developing purposeful learning behaviours. As is outlined in our behaviour policy, we put the child at the centre of this, just as we do with our curriculum. We consciously use retrieval and spaced practice to help with the children’s retention of our curriculum, including the use of knowledge organisers, quizzing and other subject specific methods. We deliver our curriculum using the gradual release of responsibility model (also known as I do – we do – you do model). In the ‘I do’ phase there is an emphasis on teacher instruction and modelling. During the ‘we do’ phase there is a focus on guided practice and in the ‘you do’ phase children engage in independent practice which will be scaffolded to meet individual learners’ needs as appropriate. The duration and frequency of this cycle will depend on what is being taught as well as the needs of individual cohorts. For many subjects carefully chosen published schemes are used to support the delivery of our curriculum, however we have identified the essential knowledge and skills which we expect children to know and be able to do. This content may be delivered in shorter discrete blocks of time or as more regular lessons dependent on the subject. We actively look for ways to further enrich the experience for the children including our educational visits and residential programme, our assembly, visitor and after school clubs programmes. As well as our 50 things to do before your leave Somerford programme designed to enrich our curriculum and build cultural capital we also have an active career programme designed to build real world aspiration in our children. These are discussed in more detail in the curriculum enrichment section. Further information about the implementation of individual subjects can be found in the subject specific information pages. IMPACT The impact of our curriculum will be seen in in the children’s capacity to recall and retain the knowledge and skills which it contains. This retention and impact will be measured in a variety of ways including: pupil voice, work scrutiny as well as more formal assessment including statutory assessments. Our feedback policy and practice mean that impact is maximised through assessment for learning leading to targeted and meaningful feedback after every lesson. Our curriculum is always under review and subject leaders will review the efficacy of their subject within the broader curriculum. Further information about our assessment of the impact of our curriculum can be found in the subject specific information pages. |
Curriculum Enrichment
EXCURSIONS
At Somerford we offer a wide range of excursions and experiences away from the school site. These can range from trips into the local community; to Watermans Park, High Cross church or to other Christchurch locations such as the beach, Mudeford Lifeboat Station or the Red House Museum.
We also take children further afield to places such as the Winchester Science Centre and Planetarium, Bournemouth Oceanarium, Buckler’s Hard or the Tank Museum. All of our visits are carefully planned with the children’s learning and development at the heart. We ask for contributions towards the costs of the trips, however we carefully consider when the trips take place across the year to ensure that they are spread out and we actively seek funding from alternative sources to reduce costs for families and ensure that excursion programme can go ahead.
RESIDENTIALS
We believe that residential learning experiences can have a significant impact on the learning and personal development of children. At Somerford Primary we offer a range of residential experiences.
In Year 4 our children have the opportunity to visit Leeson House Field Studies Centre near Swanage for two days and one night. The children take part in a range of activities including orienteering and compass work, some of which are led by specialist teachers at Leeson House. The children also do an enormous amount of learning about staying away from home including clearing up after meals and making their beds.
We are often lucky enough to be offered a four day, three night residential for some children in Year 5 to Honeypot House in the New Forest. The children participate in a wide range of art and craft activities as well as visiting the New Forest Wildlife Park. In Year 6 the children are offered the chance to go to Avon Tyrell in the New Forest. The children stay for five days and four nights and take part in a range of outdoor adventurous activities including kayaking, mountain biking, climbing, survival skills and raft building. We appreciate that residential visits can be expensive and we want all children and families to be able to access the residentials, we offer families the opportunity to pay for the trips in instalments over the course of the year. Families who are in receipt of certain benefits are entitled to pay a reduced rate for the residential visits. If you are unsure whether you qualify for a reduced rate please click here to go to an eligibility checker.
50 THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU LEAVE SOMERFORD
To enhance our curriculum further, we have created a list of 50 things to do before you leave Somerford. Each child has a copy of this list in a booklet and as they complete items they tick them off. The list includes a wide range of experiences and challenges from writing a letter to someone famous or learning to skip, to planting, growing and eating something or watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly. Have a look at your child’s booklet and see how many you can tick off as a family.
AFTER SCHOOL CLUBS
We utilise Sports Premium funding to help provide a wide range of after school clubs and activities staffed by qualified sports coaches provided by Premier Education three nights a week, including dodgeball, tri golf, rounders and football. These clubs enhance our PE offering and often feed into competitions provided through our sports partnership. As well as clubs which we provide ourselves there are also a range of clubs ran on our site by independent companies including karate through Mike Bushell Karate and dance through South Coast Dance and Arts.
ROCK STEADY
We enhance our music curriculum by giving the opportunity for children to participate in Rock Steady. Children can learn to play rock and pop songs using an electric instrument such as guitars, drums or keyboard in a band with a professional music teacher. There is a cost associated with the sessions but as a school we look to support all children to be able to access At the end of each term we invite families in to school and the children perform their songs in front of the school and parents.
ASSEMBLIES
Assemblies are key moments which bring our school community together daily. At Somerford Primary we believe that our assemblies are important opportunities to enhance the learning and development of all the children in our school.
Our assemblies address our school’s core values, encouraging the children to ENJOY their learning, ACHIEVE great things and ASPIRE to best the best version of themselves in the future.
They also look at the British values of democracy, tolerance, the rule of law, respect and individual liberty as well as consolidating our key learning behaviours: Ready, Respectful and Safe.
As well as these themes, our assemblies will also cover religious festivals, events in the news or upcoming events or projects in school. We also celebrate successes in our celebration assemblies on Fridays where class teachers recognise children’s achievements across our curriculum.