We believe that all of our pupils possess unique qualities; as such they have the right to succeed, recognise their own strengths and develop who they are in respectful and caring environment. As a school we place a high focus on developing children’s moral, spiritual, social and cultural understanding. Our school ethos is rooted in our Christian values, with ‘Caring, loving and learning’ together being at the heart of everything we do.
At Montreal C of E Primary School, our intention is that our curriculum extends opportunities, raises aspiration, opens the children’s eyes to the world beyond their immediate environment, enables our children to live happy, healthy and productive lives and inspires children to learn more. Our aim is to deliver lessons which inspire the children to talk about and share their learning with their families.
We have focused upon developing our curriculum to ensure that coverage and progression across the year groups is evident. It aims to provide pupils with memorable experiences, in addition to diverse and rich opportunities from which children can learn and develop a range of transferable skills. The children's own community is used as a starting point for engaging interest. A primary focus of our curriculum is to raise aspirations, to develop a sense of personal pride in achievement, and to provide a purpose and relevance for learning. We aim to provide activities that the children may not otherwise experience. We recognise that the children need experiences which encourage them to value their own strengths, and to develop aspirations for their future and for their community.
Our PSHE scheme and regular Kidsafe lessons provide children with opportunities to discuss and learn about personal health, well-being, safety, relationships (including anti-bullying work), differences and aspirations.
We aim to ensure that all learners enjoy their education and make very good progress in all areas of learning. Our curriculum content is grouped into a series of challenges based upon the Learning Challenge Curriculum. This scheme of work has been developed to ensure that there is full coverage of the National Curriculum. The Learning Challenge curriculum ensures that there is breadth and balance in our coverage of the National Curriculum while setting our clear progression in the skills that are being developed across the different year groups.
The concept of the Learning Challenge Curriculum is built around the idea of greater pupil involvement in their work and it encourages the pupils to use questions as starting points for their learning. The ethos that underpins the Learning Challenge approach encourages teachers to check on what the children already know, any misconceptions that they may have before inviting the pupils to think of their own learning questions that they would like to learn more about. Each Learning Challenge has a suggested 'wow' factor and a reflection activity. Opportunities have been built into the Learning Challenge curriculum to allow the children to make links with English, Maths, Computing and other subjects from the National Curriculum.
Pupils at all levels are helped to achieve their potential. Those who are most able are challenged and supported through appropriate extension activities. Those who find aspects of their learning challenging are encouraged and given targeted support to embed skills, to develop at their own pace or simply to learn in a style that best suits their individual needs.
We use regular monitoring throughout the year to evaluate the impact of our curriculum design. Initially, teachers evaluate lessons and plan the children’s next steps. The children’s acquisition of skills in English and Mathematics are monitored through teacher assessments or NFER assessments (previous SATs assessments will be used in Years 2 and 6) each half term. We use an online tool to monitor the children’s progress in the foundation subjects. Regular pupil progress meetings are held to monitor the children’s progress and to identify any interventions that are required.
Senior Leaders and subject leaders play an important part in the success of the curriculum by leading a regular programme of monitoring, evaluation and review where impact and outcomes for all children are always central. As part of this process leaders will listen to the pupil’s voice, provide feedback which celebrates our successes and highlights areas for development. This results of this monitoring then informs our school improvement plan so that we are constantly trying to develop our curriculum design.
Below you will find curriculum intention statements for each subject.
Throughout the school we think carefully about the skills that each group of children need to develop in different curriculum areas. To ensure that our children are developing specific knowledge and the progression of skills outlined in the government frameworks we have researched the skill progression for each subjects. Please view the key skills documents below which outline expectations for skills and knowledge for each year group.
When teaching Mathematics throughout the school we use the White Rose guidance to inform each teacher's long-term and weekly planning. The long-term plans below, which are taken from the White Rose guidance, show which areas of Mathematics the children will be covering throughout the year.
Each year in Reception Class we follow the interests of the child to plan topics. Our first topic has been taught through one of our learning challenges, ‘What do I know about me? This is the starting point for topics to arise, so that we can spend time getting to know the children and seek their interests to help plan our next topic. Thereafter, we will be carrying out different learning challenges each week following the learning and interests of the children at that time. Here are some learning challenges that we may carry out during this year depending on the children’s interests throughout the year:
HOW WE TEACH PHONICS
At Montreal Church of England Primary School we use the resources from the Read Write Inc scheme for teaching phonics. This enables children to read through recognising the sounds represented by different letters.
Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 have a dedicated phonics lesson each day which is then followed up in their daily literacy lessons.
Children in Key Stage 2 have a discreet Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling lesson daily which then links to their literacy lessons.