The National Curriculum specifies five Key Stages in relationship to the period of
compulsory education (from 5 years to 16 years of age).
Foundation Stage (3-5 years) Key Stage 1 (5-7 years) Key Stage 2 (7-11years)
Key Stage 3 (11-14years) Key Stage 4 (14-16years)
Key Stages 1 and 2
The Core Subjects are:
English, Mathematics, Information and
Communication Technology, Science and RE (Voluntary Aided School).
The Foundation Subjects are:
Design & Technology, History, Geography, P.H.S.E., Music, Art and Physical Education.
There are arrangements for formally assessing the pupils’ performance according to
the levels of attainment and against the appropriate level descriptions at the end of
each Key Stage. In addition to the formal assessment, teachers are constantly
assessing the understanding and progress of the children.
These eleven subjects, together with Religious Education, make up the curriculum
provided by our school. In addition, cross curricular themes, dimensions and skills are
identified. These include citizenship, health education, environmental education,
European awareness, economic and industrial awareness. Personal, Health and Social
education, equality of opportunity and multicultural education are included in our
It is intended that the National Curriculum should not be the whole
curriculum offered by the school, although it will be the majority of it, and that the
entire curriculum provided should be broad and balanced in nature.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
Our school aims to meet the individual educational needs of all its pupils but it seeks to
balance the needs of individuals with the needs of the other children in the school. The
school also recognises that the presence of pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities can provide an opportunity for the children to develop positive attitudes towards those
whose needs are different.
The Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator, Mrs Embley-Peers, co-ordinates the day-to-day
provision for any children with Special Educational Needs in consultation with the class
teachers and external agencies. All teachers will ensure that children who have Special
Educational Needs are identified at the earliest opportunity. In assessing a child's
needs our school will follow the model outlined by the Department of
Education's SEND Code of Practice 2014, involving parents closely in this process. The children will
follow the National Curriculum, as far as possible and will join in with their classmates
in their day-to-day activities. They will be monitored closely and reviewed regularly.
The School Curriculum
Religious Education is a central element of the curriculum. It is taught in accordance
with the principles of the Church of England and is based upon the Blackburn Diocesan
Board of Education Syllabus. Morning acts of collective worship are held daily in the
school hall for all pupils.
Our aim is to help our pupils develop into effective adult readers with a positive
attitude to language. We want them to be able to cope with all the reading demands of
the adult world and to be so motivated that reading becomes a worthwhile interest in
itself. Your child will bring home a book from our wide range of reading schemes, and
along with this, he or she will be encouraged to read a variety of books which they
borrow from our fiction and non-fiction sections of the school library. We would
encourage all our children to join the public library service and make full use of this.
Both within daily Literacy lessons and throughout the school week, all children listen to
stories and poetry and are taught how to use books for finding information
Your child will take home a reading scheme book from the very first days of starting
school, to discuss the pictures and begin to recognise words with an adult at home.
Your child will soon be able to sound out words, practising what they learn in daily
lessons. We hope that you will become fully involved in helping your child to learn to
read. It is important to make reading times fun, so children will continue to develop a
positive attitude to the world of books. When your child brings home a book for
independent reading, it helps if parents discuss the story and encourage the child to
make predictions about what they think may happen next. Children continue to bring
reading books home as they progress through school, and it is of great benefit to
children if parents continue to take an interest in their child’s reading progress, even
when children move onto reading silently to themselves. We hope that all our children
will be encouraged to make time to read for pleasure.
Our aim is that all our children will enjoy writing and feel confident to express
themselves from the start of school, through early “emergent” writing right up until
children are composing reports, accounts, giving instructions, writing narratives, poetry,
letters and communicating information. All children follow their year group expectations set out in National Curriculum to develop a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of writing, and at
the same time, teachers assess which aspects of punctuation, spelling and grammar
require greater attention for each individual child.
We aim to give our pupils a knowledge and appreciation of mathematics both as a
creative subject with its own order and pattern, and as a subject of vital importance in
everyday life. The use of number language and the formation of questions and remarks
are important in mathematical development. Children learn much by practical
exploration, especially in sand and water, and by discussing their findings and final
recording. Our basic schemes cover the essentials in the areas of; Using and Applying
Mathematics, Number, Algebra, Measurement, Space and Shape, and Handling Data. Mental Mathematics, including timestables are an integral part of mathematic teaching and learning in school. We develop activities that begin from the children's own practical experience leading to the more abstract side in later years.
We aim to encourage all our children in developing the scientific investigative skills
using observation, classification, prediction, questioning and formulating hypotheses.
We will aim to give the children a good understanding of life and living processes,
materials and their properties and to have a firm grounding in the physical sciences.
We will encourage the children to identify the needs and opportunities for design and
technological activities, to generate designs which are realistic, appropriate and
achievable, to use a variety of tools and resources to make their design and evaluate its
Information and Communication Technology
We aim to develop the children's capabilities in the field of IT through a range of
curriculum activities, including work within the National Curriculum subjects. From the
Foundation Stage to the end of Key Stage Two, this involves using computers
independently to solve problems, to support learning and to understand the implications
of IT for the home, in working life and society as a whole.
We aim to develop in the children a degree of knowledge and understanding of history,
the ability to make meaningful interpretations of history, and to make use of a variety
of historical sources in their studies. We hope that the children will begin to
appreciate and enjoy a sense of history.
We aim to ensure that the children develop an understanding of the skills involved in
geography, acquire knowledge and understanding of places, close to home, in Britain,
Europe and in the World, following the themes of Settlement, Rivers, and the Weather
and have an understanding of environmental issues
Art is both a resource with which your child can communicate and a means by which
your child's sensitivity and awareness of the environment can be developed. Children
are encouraged to draw from life and first hand sources. They are given the
opportunities to develop creative skills by experiencing and experimenting with a wide
variety of tools and media. Children are given opportunities to explore the world of
professional artists and look at art from different cultures. We aim to help the
children appreciate art in all its forms.
We aim to provide an organised musical environment using a wide range of musical
experiences to meet the needs and interests of all children. Our music curriculum
provides musical activities that will enhance other learning such as the acquisition of
language, listening skills, auditory discrimination and social understanding. Our children
are encouraged to join the school choir, recorder ensembles, school orchestra, to take
part in church services and performances linked with the Church and the community
and to enter local Music Festivals. Peripatetic teachers presently teach groups of
string. woodwind and brass instruments.
The physical and health education programme aims to ensure that by the time your
child leaves this school he/she has acquired a sound knowledge of gymnastics, dance,
games skills, athletics, swimming and dance plus how to keep healthy.
Key Stage 2 pupils also access swimming lessons on a weekly basis and have
the opportunity to visit Tower Wood Outdoor Education Centre, Windermere for a
residential three days of adventurous activities.
Through physical activities we wish:
• to extend and improve the quality and control of body movements.
• to develop a sense of team spirit, co-operation and enjoyment
• to improve overall fitness
• to encourage a sense of enjoyment
The greatest help parents give is to take an active interest in their child's work, often
by helping with a piece of research which interests the child, or by listening to the
child read for a few minutes each evening and discussing the story.
We believe that children should be encouraged to have wide interests at this stage of their
development, being members of Cubs or Brownies or Swimming Clubs can be of great
benefit to them, as is enjoying evenings at home with the family. All pupils are given
homework which is intended to enrich and broaden their education and to reinforce
topics covered in lesson time. This will include the learning of spellings, timestables and number
bonds. Children are given written homework on a regular basis. All children from Year 1
onwards also take home spellings and mental math timestables to learn
All pupils have work to do at home with their family in relation to the
mathematics being covered in class.