Our Curriculum & Assessment of Learning
Raynville Curriculum Statement
At Raynville we are committed to creating an environment where our children love learning. Through our curriculum, we endeavour to develop the skills, knowledge and learning attitudes of our pupils so that they are equipped to be the best that they can be. We value the importance of enriching our pupils’ curriculum with real life experiences, through trips and visitors, so children have first hand opportunities to embrace their learning. We set high expectations and strive for independence in all areas regardless of a child’s starting point in life. At Raynville, we place our values at the core of everything we do and prioritise pupils’ understanding of the necessity for being ready, respectful and responsible. We feel this is essential in preparing children to be respect and inclusive of all so that they can positively contribute to our wider community.
Raynville Academy Curriculum Years 1 – Years 6
The programmes of study for the National Curriculum set out what the school is required to teach. “The quality of teaching, as shown by pupils’ good achievement and lessons observed during the inspection, is consistently good overall and some is outstanding.” (Ofsted 2017).
Assessment of Pupil Learning
At Raynville Academy, we use a wide range of ‘Assessment for Learning’ strategies in school. This is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there.
Children are assessed throughout each lesson and through their work in books by their class teachers and other members of staff in school. This information is then used to plan and adapt learning effectively to ensure that all children are learning at the appropriate level and are challenged in their learning.
We use internal electronic tracking systems to plot pupil’s progress and attainment and use this information in half termly pupil progress meetings to ensure that all pupils are achieving to the best of their ability. This information is shared with parents during the school year, as the children being assessed within a 6-point scale at either Beginning, Within or Secure age appropriate learning goals.
Our EYFS Curriculum has been designed to meet the need of OUR children. It focusses on developing the children’s speaking and listening skills, developing a broad vocabulary and becoming effective communicators. We strive to create a love of reading through carefully chosen stories, used to enhance our chosen themes for each half term. The themes were chosen to help our children learn to respect other cultures and communities, to make links between their personal experiences and learn about the world they live in. It is therefore unique to Raynville Academy.
The Raynville EYFS curriculum has been written in accordance with the latest version of the ‘Statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)’ (September 2021). The EYFS framework includes seven areas of learning and development that are important and interconnected:
- Communication and language.
- Personal, social and emotional development.
- Physical development.
- Literacy
- Numeracy
- Understanding the world.
- Expressive arts and design.
However, the first three areas in the list above, known as the prime areas, are seen as particularly important for igniting curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, and for building children’s capacity to learn, form relationships and thrive:
We have developed the curriculum giving communication and language skills a high priority. This is in line with Development Matters 2020: “The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. Children’s back-and-forth interactions from an early age form the foundations for language and cognitive development. The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the day in a language-rich environment is crucial. By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, practitioners will build children’s language effectively.”
A high priority is also given to the teaching of reading. We aim to teach children to read and develop a love of books as soon as they arrive at Raynville, and books are used to teach topics and to enhance our whole curriculum.
We follow a systematic approach to phonics teaching based on the Read Write Ink scheme.
We underpin our curriculum with the Personal Social and Emotional Development of all our children. We strive to enable children to be safe, happy, confident individuals. We also encourage self-regulation as much as possible and introduce rules and boundaries through modelling good behaviour and reflection time.
The curriculum is based around cross-curricular topics. Each topic planned is included in the curriculum for specific reasons and we want to ensure that all children leave the Reception Year ready to start the KS1 curriculum.
At the end of their Reception Year, the children will be assessed against 17 Early Learning Goals. This is called the Foundation Stage Profile. The Profile will be shared with parents and used by the child’s next teacher for planning his/her learning in Year 1.
ORGANISATION OF TEACHING IN KS1 & KS2
The children are grouped in classes of approximately 30 pupils.
During the working day children may be taught as a whole class or in mixed ability or ability groupings. Children may take part in targeted interventions for English and mathematics as part of their day, helping them to accelerate their learning.
Key Stage 1 and 2
We have spent the last year developing our curriculum to meet the new requirements and will continue this work on this every year. We expect that our curriculum will enable our children to learn, achieve their best, and enjoy finding out about new ideas. Through our curriculum, we endeavour to develop the skills, knowledge and learning attitudes of our pupils so that they are equipped to be the best that they can be.
Our children really enjoy learning through the foundation subjects, many bringing in related work which they have done spontaneously at home.
As we develop our curriculum in a way that suits our school, we link the core subjects of English and Maths onto the back of it, accelerating and promoting a love of life-long learning. That’s not to say everything will be taught around a theme. There will still be dedicated English and Maths lessons, but where there is a genuine link to the topic theme, we will use it to give relevance to the learning. Similarly, ICT whilst sometimes taught as a discrete subject, may be linked where appropriate to the topic. Our curriculum needs to start with our children’s home lives and work out from there. This is the hub of our thinking. We want to involve parents more, using their experiences and knowledge. We believe that when our children see their parents contributing to their education, they will also think, “This is something that my family do!” We see the value in linking learning to life and life back to learning. “Through schooling, both scientific and everyday concepts become objects of study.”The implementation of the curriculum, will go hand in hand with our drive to include parents. Both strategies feature largely in our School Development Plan. We have decided that the following are the priority areas that would make the biggest difference to our children’s rate of success: Active Listening, Resilience and Effective Communication. These are our Curriculum Drivers. By emphasising these again and again throughout the curriculum, our children will gain these attributes, enabling them to succeed as learners. A crucial element will be the use of group work to enable the children to benefit from communicating with one another. This links with our Talk Matters project across school. We work on a two year rolling programme across two Year groups to generate a buzz within that phase of school and allow for subject specialism amongst teachers. Every Half Term we will strive to use a “Wow event” to gain the interest of the children. This might be an event to spark their interest and imagination at the start of the topic, or alternatively later in the term to further inspire and enthuse, enabling them to use some of the knowledge they have acquired.
Once they leave Reception and the Foundation Stage, children are taught The National Curriculum (Years 1 to 6). Key Stage 1 is made up of Years 1 & 2. Key Stage 2 is comprised of Years 3 to 6.
Click on the links for a brief outline of each curriculum area.