The curriculum refers to the wide range of learning opportunities provided by our school. This includes our timetabled lessons, out of school activities and attitudes, moral values and styles of behaviour promoted and supported by the school.
Our Curriculum Vision
At Aberford C of E Primary School, we strive to create an inclusive culture of learning where all children are challenged in their thinking, to achieve to the best of their abilities and strive to become lifelong learners. We empower our children to overcome barriers to learning and to develop resilience to help them succeed in the wider world throughout their lives. We respect each other and are proud of each other's achievements, striving to promote a love and thirst for learning and a determination to embrace new challenges. We are creative and enthusiastic in all our teaching and learning and work together in a safe and happy environment, enabling all of our children to become responsible citizens who can make valuable contributions locally, globally and to contribute to our world's sustainable future.
We are proud of our ambitious curriculum: one which delivers the statutory National Curriculum but also provides for the needs and interests of all our children. Our curriculum builds upon the knowledge, understanding and skills of all children, whatever their starting points, as they progress through each Key Stage. Our curriculum has received high praise from external visitors. Anne-Marie Garnett, Director of Early Careers Framework at The Leeds Teaching School Hub recently told us how impressed she was at the depth of our curriculum, describing it as a 'stretch curriculum', enabling children to delve deeper and and make clear links between lessons.
As a school with mixed age classes, we have carefully mapped topics within subjects over a two year rolling programme so that children are taught objectives in the right order and so that all new knowledge builds on what they have already been taught. For example, our Cycle A and Cycle B mapping makes sure that all children are taught the Year 1 science objectives about plants before they are taught the Year 2 science objectives about plants, ensuring that new learning build on prior learning. This can be seen in the curriculum mapping documents on each subject page.
For mathematics, we teach each year group discretely, using our staffing resource carefully, to ensure all children are taught the maths objectives specific to their year group. This also allows us to teach maths to smaller group sizes, enabling children to be well supported by highly skilled teachers in developing their maths knowledge.
When planning our curriculum, we have considered the needs of our pupils and families and have chosen topics specifically to ensure all our children learn about subjects both close to home and far away. The curriculum is underpinned by the school’s Christian Values and these are promoted through all areas of the curriculum, including daily Collective Worships. The spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of our pupils and their understanding of the core values of our society are woven through the curriculum. We firmly believe that our approach will create well rounded, lifelong learners who are prepared for the challenges and adventures as they embark on their next chapter. Our curriculum ensures learning is effective, exciting and relevant to the needs of our children.
The National Curriculum
The Structure of the National Curriculum
- Every maintained school is obliged to provide a basic curriculum comprising Religious Education and for pupils of compulsory school age, the National Curriculum.
- In addition to Religious Education (5% of our teaching time) your child will study the following subjects:
- Core subjects - English, Maths and Science.
- Foundation subjects - Art and Design, Computing, Design and Technology, Geography, History, Music, PE, RE, Spanish, SRE
The School Curriculum
Learning is meaningful, fun and inspiring. Whenever possible, this includes exciting visits to places of interest or visitors into school.
- The curriculum is broad but with a high priority on English, Maths, Computing and Science.
- We have a combination of cross-curricular and subject teaching to suit individual age groups.
- The curriculum is taught through a mixture of teaching styles and methods to suit children’s individual learning styles.
- Activity-based learning and problem solving is integrated into the curriculum.
- Children experience ‘personalised learning’ so that individual needs and interests are met.