Marhamchurch uses rigorous data analysis, termly point in time assessments (to track progress and attainment against national age-related expectation) and monitoring throughout the year to gauge the impact of curriculum design. The Head of School and individual subject leaders (with support from our Trust’s School Improvement Partner (SIP) and external monitoring visits) monitor planning, classroom environments, books, lessons and moderate the accuracy of assessments, providing individual feedback to: move practice forward; celebrating positives; and highlighting areas for development that through support, training or coaching are changed. The use of pupil conferencing and the school council’s secret students in class enables us to evaluate pupil voice too.

EYFS

Children in Reception follow the EYFS curriculum which covers the Prime Learning Areas of Personal, Social and Emotional Learning, Communication and Language and Physical Development as well as the specific areas of Early Literacy and Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design. The school’s approach to Early Learning is that it should be as child initiated as possible and we provide an environment where children can explore and develop their skills and knowledge through experience and ‘play’. As they become more secure and able, they progress onto more structured and focused ‘teacher led’ activities in preparation for Key Stage 1. Children in Reception also have daily reading (phonic-based), writing and maths activities.

Phonics

Early reading is taught using synthetic phonics as the main approach to reading. Pupils are systematically taught the phonemes (sounds), how to blend the sounds for reading and how to segment the sounds in order to write and spell words. They are taught to use their phonic skills and knowledge as their first approach to reading but are also taught high frequency/’tricky’ (Red) words, which cannot be decoded. The school uses the Read Write Inc scheme to teach phonics. Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are assessed regularly, grouped according to ability and taught phonics in small groups each day.Reading

While daily phonics is used as our first approach to the teaching of reading, alongside this, children are given opportunities to develop other strategies for decoding and a love of books and reading. For example, each class has daily class book reading where the Teacher will read a carefully selected book to their class. Often these books link to termly topics or other learning interests. In addition, children in Class 3, Class 4 and Class 5 have daily guided reading sessions and weekly homework where we work on developing their reading comprehension and fluency through VIPERS questions (vocabulary, infer, predict, explain, retrieve and sequence/summarise). This develops our children’s ability to read between the lines and fully understand age-appropriate texts. Whereas Class 1 and Class 2 children have daily guided reading sessions during RWI time using books carefully matched to the scheme. Children are also encouraged to bring reading books home from both our banded books as well as from our school library to share with parents and to practice their reading through the introduction of reading karate. Class 1 and 2 children take RWI book bag books home that are carefully matched to the scheme so only contain sounds that they have been taught in school.

Writing

During Key Stage 1, we aim to continue the early learning goals of differentiating between print and pictures; recognising the connection between speech and writing; become aware of the symbolic nature of writing, the sounds and names of letters and how to write them correctly. We aim to help the children enjoy writing and see the value of it; to learn to communicate meaning in narrative and non-fiction texts; to spell and punctuate correctly. In Year 2, we expect the children to begin to join their handwriting neatly.

During Key Stage 2, we aim to help the children to develop understanding that writing is both essential to thinking and learning, and enjoyable in its own right; to learn the main rules and conventions of written English; to start to explore how the English language can be used to express meaning in different ways; to use the planning, drafting and editing process to improve their work; to sustain their fiction and non-fiction writing. Across Key Stage 2, we expect the children to develop a neat, joined handwriting style.

Mathematics
The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:

• become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
• reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language.
• can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.

We aim for the children to mastery their mathematics learning so that they can use and apply it confidently in a range of contexts.

The principal focus of mathematics teaching in:

• Key Stage 1 is to ensure that pupils develop confidence and mental fluency with whole numbers, counting and place value. This should involve working with numerals, words and the four operations, including with practical resources (for example, concrete objects and measuring tools).
• Lower key Stage 2 is to ensure that pupils become increasingly fluent with whole numbers and the four operations, including number facts and the concept of place value. This should ensure that pupils develop efficient written and mental methods and perform calculations accurately with increasingly large whole numbers. By the end of Year 4, it is expected that the children can rapidly recall multiplication and related division facts for all multiplication tables up to 12 x 12.
• And Upper Key Stage 2 is to ensure that pupils extend their understanding of the number system and place value to include larger integers. This should develop the connections that pupils make between multiplication and division with fractions, decimals, percentages, proportions and ratio. In Year 6, the children begin to learn algebra too.

Throughout both Key Stage 1 and 2 mathematics, the children also learn measurements, the properties of shapes, position, direction and statistics.

Why RE? What is RE?

RE helps us to explore big questions about life. We find out what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live. RE helps us to make sense of religion and belief. We can reflect on our own and other people’s ideas and ways of living.

Why daily acts of collective worship at Marhamchurch?

Collective Worship is a statutory requirement for all schools in England and Wales. Collective worship is central to the life of our school. It is a time where the whole school community family meet together to learn and reflect, a time to be still, and opportunity to engage and respond.