Our Curriculum Approach

The curriculum at Key Stage 1 builds upon the strong foundations of reception, as it gradually moves away from child-initiated learning and becomes more teacher-led.

There is a strong emphasis on key mathematical concepts and ideas, such as learning number bonds to 10 and 20 and beyond, fundamental times tables knowledge such as counting in 2s, 5s and 10s initially before  moving on to other number facts. Maths is taught every day for about an hour.  In addition the children take part in a daily ‘Power Maths’ session which develops their basic number and calculation skills and enhances their mental maths abilities.

With literacy there is daily phonics teaching (sounds that letters make), which impacts upon their reading and writing. The phonic strategy used is Letters and Sounds. Pupils are also given many opportunities in daily English lessons to explore and experiment with language, to have fun engaging with a variety of texts and to build up their writing through understanding spelling, punctuation and grammar.  Writing is taught using the Talk for Writing approach, which allows children to immerse themselves in a text, before using the skills they have learnt to write their own texts.

Some subjects are taught individually, such as PE (two sessions per week), However, most subjects are taught in a cross curricula way as part of the themed or topic-based curriculum. Pupils will at times work individually and at others as part of a group, both independently and with an adult.

Pupils in Year 1 in the summer term undertake a Phonics Screening Check, to assess how well they have developed their phonic knowledge. At the end of Year 2 pupils are asked to do Key Stage 1 tests in reading, writing, spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPAG) and maths. These are used by the teacher to measure the progress they have made from the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage (Reception).

Read our Curriculum Policy for more information

Contact us to discuss our curriculum

We are part of the Inspiration Trust and share their knowledge-rich curriculum. We make sure our curriculum is inclusive and accessible for all of our students. Read our principles to find out more about how we achieve this.