We provide a curriculum which is broad and balanced, offering a range of experiences, which are relevant to the children’s present and future interests and needs. Education is a life-long process and we aim to help the children to achieve their full potential and to acquire the concepts, knowledge, skills and attitudes that will equip them for life in a fast changing world. The children will be provided with active, enjoyable and stimulating learning experiences in a secure, happy and caring environment where each individual is valued and respected. We aim to provide each child with opportunities to experience success and achievement and to develop a positive self-image. You can find more information on the curriculum our school is following at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum
At Drayton Green Primary, we strive to create an environment in which children can confidently learn and achieve by working independently and with their peers. The maths curriculum aims to provide children with the opportunity to develop enjoyment and passion for the subject, allow them to understand the world around them and reason mathematically.
Using effective planning, teaching and learning strategies, assessment and knowledge of our children, we aim to develop and extend pupils’ knowledge and understanding of mathematical concepts by providing them with a range of learning activities- both mathematical and reasoning concepts.
Pupils’ progress is closely monitored and work is differentiated towards the individual’s needs and ability.
The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:
Our main aim for English in the school is to expose all pupils to rich, high quality texts that broaden their range of vocabulary and experiences through reading. Through a range of teaching approaches like shared writing, drama, visualising and writing in role, pupils embark on a creative English journey – that our diverse community can relate to. We believe and prioritise the importance of discussions, thoughts and feelings about a particular book and this is combined with a rigorous approach to the teaching of skills. We strive to develop a real love for reading through our different approaches in English lessons.
Whole Class Reading
We have chosen this approach to allow all of our pupils the opportunity to access high quality texts during reading lessons. Pupils are taught explicit reading skills like inferencing, retrieving information from text, commenting on the author’s choice of language and making comparisons within the text. This is all combined with an exciting reading journey with texts that are specifically chosen to engage our pupils and our diverse community.
Phonics
At Drayton Green we use the phonics programme Bug Club. It aims to build children's speaking and listening skills, as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills for children starting by the age of five, with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by age seven.
There are six overlapping phases. The table below is a summary based on the Letters and Sounds guidance for Practitioners and Teachers.
Phase | Phonic Knowledge and Skills |
Phase One (Nursery/Reception) | Activities are divided into seven aspects, including environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body sounds, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds and finally oral blending and segmenting. |
Phase Two (Reception) up to 6 weeks | Learning 19 letters of the alphabet and one sound for each. Blending sounds together to make words. Segmenting words into their separate sounds. Beginning to read simple captions. |
Phase Three (Reception) up to 12 weeks | The remaining 7 letters of the alphabet, one sound for each. Graphemes such as ch, oo, th representing the remaining phonemes not covered by single letters. Reading captions, sentences and questions. On completion of this phase, children will have learnt the "simple code", i.e. one grapheme for each phoneme in the English language. |
Phase Four (Reception) 4 to 6 weeks | No new grapheme-phoneme correspondences are taught in this phase. Children learn to blend and segment longer words with adjacent consonants, e.g. swim, clap, jump. |
Phase Five (Throughout Year 1) | Now we move on to the "complex code". Children learn more graphemes for the phonemes which they already know, plus different ways of pronouncing the graphemes they already know. |
Phase Six (Throughout Year 2 and beyond) | Working on spelling, including prefixes and suffixes, doubling and dropping letters etc. |
At Drayton Green, we develop our pupils’ scientific knowledge and understanding in the areas of physics, biology and chemistry. Our pupils really enjoy science: they have a natural excitement and curiosity about the world around them and we build on this in our science curriculum, encouraging them to ask questions and explore ideas in different ways. We teach and inspire them to both think and behave like scientists by observing carefully, reflecting on what they have noticed, and then testing their ideas. In their investigations our children are supported to predict what they think might happen, record and analyse their results and make scientific conclusions based upon these. They are also taught and encouraged to use the correct scientific language.
Science plays an immensely important and vital role in the world today and we equip our pupils to understand its uses and implications. We hope that we inspire some to contribute to this and become scientists themselves!
At Drayton Green Primary School, we believe that Physical Education (PE), experienced in a safe and supportive environment, is essential to ensure children attain optimum physical and emotional development and good health. We intend to deliver high-quality teaching and learning opportunities that inspire all children to succeed in physical education and in developing life skills. Children will be willing to practise skills in a range of different activities and situations, alone, in small groups and in teams, and to apply these skills in chosen activities to achieve exceptionally high levels of performance. We also want to teach children how to cooperate and collaborate with others as part of an effective team, understanding fairness and equity of play to embed life-long values. Our PE curriculum aims to improve the wellbeing and fitness of all children at Drayton Green Primary School, not only through the sporting skills taught, but through the underpinning values and disciplines PE promotes. We want our children to have a keen interest in PE – a willingness to participate eagerly in every lesson, highly positive attitudes.
In our French lessons, we aim to develop pupils’ speaking skills for use in everyday situations. We begin with simple greetings and progress through the year groups to include: making basic conversation by asking and answering questions; buying an ice-cream; ordering a meal in a café and telling a doctor where it hurts.
We use a wide variety of resources including songs, games, short films and interactive activities to make learning French as engaging an experience as possible. In addition to whole class learning, children work in pairs and groups on different language tasks.
Pupils also develop their ability to write in French. To this end, some lessons look at how common French sounds are represented by particular letters or letter combinations. We also compare the structure of English and French which helps to increase understanding of grammatical terms. From recording single words and short phrases already familiar to them in spoken form, pupils move on to writing simple sentences and then to producing scripted conversations which they rehearse and perform for their peers.The art curriculum is linked to the Topic themes that are covered throughout the academic year. This enables one to embed what the children are learning in their Topic lessons. To ensure children experience a broad and balanced curriculum, skills such as drawing, painting, collage, 3D, printing, mixed-media assemblage, and sculpture are covered over time. To see progression in the children’s work, skills are revisited and built upon across the whole school art experience from Year 1 to Year 6 and in ARP1 and ARP2.
With every Topic theme covered, the children are introduced to art movements and artist linked to the theme. The children are made conscious of where and when the art is from including ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds. Children are encouraged to use art vocabulary when sharing their creative design art ideas with their class. Children are provided opportunities to develop their own ideas in their sketchbooks linked to the theme in an imaginative way, right through to an outcome. Every child is encouraged to strive for excellent when embarking upon a Topic theme and to apply a growth mind-set to every challenge they face.We are a multi-cultural school and believe that if children are to develop an understanding about religion, then certain aspects of a child’s own experience must be developed. Developing self-awareness and awareness of others and the natural world is paramount. We seek to engage children in their own personal quest to discover meaning in their lives and to foster sensitivity towards seeing things from other people’s points of view.
There are three main strands of the Computing curriculum: information technology, digital literacy and computer science. Information technology is about the use of computers for functional purposes, such as collecting and presenting information, or using search technology. Digital literacy isabout the safe and responsible use of technology, including recognising its advantages for collaboration or communication. Finally, computer science will introduce children of all ages to understanding how computers and networks work. It will also give all children the opportunity to learn basic computer programing, from simple floor robots in Years 1 and 2, right up to creating on-screen computer games and programs by Year 6. We include regular teaching of e-safety during each year to ensure that children feel confident when using computers and the internet, and that they know what to do if they come across something either inappropriate or uncomfortable.