Phonics and early reading

We teach early reading and phonics through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. View our launch presentation for parents below.

More information for parents about our phonics programme is available on the Little Wandle website. The resources on this page will help you support your child with saying their sounds and writing their letters. There are also some useful videos so you can see how they are taught at school and feel confident about supporting their reading at home. Find our full Reception and Year 1 teaching programme overview here to see what your child will learn and when.

Intent

Phonics (reading and spelling)

At St Adrian’s Catholic Primary School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At St Adrian’s Catholic Primary School, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Comprehension

At St Adrian’s Catholic Primary School, we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.

Because we believe teaching every child to read is so important, we have a Reading Leader who drives the early reading programme in our school. This person is highly skilled at teaching phonics and reading, and they monitor and support our reading team, so everyone teaches with fidelity to the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme.

Implementation

Foundations for phonics in Nursery

  • We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include:
    • sharing high-quality stories and poems
    • learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
    • activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending
    • attention to high-quality language.
  • We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.

Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1

  • We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
  • Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.
  • We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress:
    • Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
    • Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read

  • Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
  • We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or 3 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Keep-up resources – at pace. 
  • If any child in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, we plan phonics ‘catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading/writing gaps. These short, sharp lessons last 10 minutes and take place at least three times a week.

Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week

  • We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:
    • are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children
    • use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids on pages 11–20 of ‘Application of phonics to reading’
    • are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.
  • Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:
    • decoding
    • prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
    • comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
  • In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.
  • In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.

Home reading

  • The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family. All of our families have access to our eBook library.
  • Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children.
  • We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.

Additional reading support for vulnerable children

  • Children in Reception and Year 1 who are receiving additional phonics Keep-up sessions read their reading practice book to an adult daily.

Ensuring consistency and pace of progress

  • Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.
  • Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme.
  • Lesson templates, Prompt cards and How to videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.
  • The Reading Leader and SLT use the Audit and Prompt cards to regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning.

Ensuring reading for pleasure

‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002)

‘The will influences the skill and vice versa.’ (OECD 2010)

We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy.

  • We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children at St Adrian’s Catholic Primary School and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures.
  • Every classroom has an inviting book corner that encourages a love for reading. We curate these books and talk about them to entice children to read a wide range of books.
  • In Nursery/Reception, children have access to the reading corner every day in their free flow time and the books are continually refreshed.
  • Children from Nursery/Reception onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school and the adults will write in this on a regular basis to ensure communication between home and school.
  • As the children progress through the school, they are encouraged to write their own comments and keep a list of the books/authors that they have read.
  • Each class visits the local library every half term.
  • The school library is made available for classes to use at protected times. It must be booked via the school booking system. Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (book fairs, author visits and workshops, national events etc).

Impact

Assessment

Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.

  • Assessment for learning is used:
    • daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support
    • weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.
  • Summative assessment is used:
    • every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.
    • by SLT and scrutinised through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessment tracker, to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.
  • The Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised placement assessment is used:
    • with any child new to the school to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan provide appropriate extra teaching.

Statutory assessment

  • Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics screening check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.

Ongoing assessment for catch-up

  • Children in Year 2 to 6 are assessed through:
    •  their teacher’s ongoing formative assessment
    • the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds placement assessment
    • the appropriate half-termly assessments.

Learning in the Early Years at St. Adrian’s

The education for children at St. Adrian’s is based on the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’ framework. These are government guidelines that set out the curriculum delivered to each child, from birth until the end of the Reception class. The framework is organised into the seven areas of learning.  Our first priority is to ensure children are happy, settled and ready to learn.

You can access the Early Years Foundation Stage framework here.

In the stimulating and caring environment at St. Adrian’s, children learn to feel confident and able to learn through enjoyable and challenging play.

Play is a very important part of growing up. From birth to five years old, children grow, develop and learn rapidly. They choose their friends and develop their own preferred ways of learning. This involves finding out the answers to questions, developing the confidence to ‘have a go’ and learning new skills, as well as consolidating and extending what has already been discovered.

When children start school, they have already learnt a lot from parents at home and in pre-school. We want to build on what children already know and can do, continually taking them to the next stage.

Children learn many new skills from being involved in purposeful, structured play, both indoors and outdoors. Whilst in the Foundation Stage, children spend periods of time involved in activities planned by an adult and periods of time doing activities they have chosen themselves.

You can access the Nursery handbook here.
You can access the Reception handbook here.

The Learning Environment 

The indoor and outdoor ‘classrooms’ are arranged to give children plenty of space to move around, to work individually and in groups, large and small. 

Resources are well organised and labelled so that children know where to find what they need and can be independent in their play (and tidying!). This means that adults can spend more time joining in with children’s learning. 

Through this supported play, children can explore, develop and use their curiosity and imagination to help them make sense of the world in a secure environment. They learn skills, build up ideas and concepts, think creatively and imaginatively and communicate with others as they investigate and solve problems. 

Let’s find out more about the areas of learning

Each of the following learning areas have early learning goals. Individualized learning and care enhances the development of every child to help them work towards the early learning goals and give them the best possible start in life. 

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Children’s personal, social and emotional development is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Nursery and Reception classes provide a secure environment for children to develop as confident individuals. Opportunities are provided for each child to become a valued member of a group and community so that confidence and self-esteem are promoted. Children are encouraged to work and play cooperatively and establish effective relationships with other children and adults. They have many opportunities to demonstrate their independence and seek help where needed, developing an understanding of what is right, what is wrong and why. The other six areas of learning are underpinned by secure personal, social and emotional development.

Communication and Language

We provide a stimulating environment in which the children can listen and respond to stories, non-fiction writing, songs, nursery rhymes and poems and take part in role-play with confidence. The children love to discuss the text, retell stories through small world activities and make up stories of their own. The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the school 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 help to build children’s language acquisition.


Physical Development 

Physical development in the Foundation Stage at St. Adrian’s is about providing opportunities for children to develop and improve their skills of coordination, control, manipulation and movement both indoors and outside. Physical activity is vital in children’s all around development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross (large body muscles) and fine (small muscles in hands and fingers) motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood. The development of a child’s strength, coordination and positional awareness is developed through movement opportunities with both objects and adults. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well being. Fine motor control and precision helps with eye-hand coordination, which is later linked to early literacy and writing.

Literacy

Comprehension 

Language comprehension (both reading and writing) develops when adults at St. Adrian’s talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together. 

The children will learn comprehension skills alongside learning to decode the words on the page. This will help them to make sense of what the words say and what the text means. These skills help children become keen and confident readers. 

Word Reading

The children will learn about rhyming words, listen for sounds in words, recognise letters and use these to blend words. They will be introduced to letters through the Letters and Sounds programme and develop a love for books from the school reading scheme as well as from the class library. Children learn to enjoy words and language. They love to sing rhymes and share books with others.

Writing

Children are encouraged to make marks and use pictures, symbols, letters and familiar words to communicate meaning. They experience a wide range of writing tools and are encouraged to hold them carefully and form letters correctly.

Children develop good small muscle manipulative skills in their hands and fingers before they can form letters.

Mathematics

Through practical activities the children are encouraged to sort and match objects by colour, size and shape, and to recognise, recreate and devise their own patterns. They experience counting games and activities, number rhymes, songs and stories. They learn to use mathematical understanding to solve practical problems. Our curriculum also includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics. We believe that it is very important for the children to develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, and spot connections. 

Understanding the World

In this area of learning, children are developing the crucial skills of knowledge and understanding that help them to make sense of their physical world and their community.   They are encouraged to solve problems and find out about the world around them through using their five senses of sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing.  This forms the foundation for later work in science, design and technology, history, geography, and computing. 

Expressive Arts and Design

Creativity is fundamental to successful learning.  Being creative enables children to make connections between one area of learning and another and so extend their understanding. We provide a huge range of practical activities that promote creativity through art, music, dance, role-play and imaginative play. The frequency, repetition and depth of children’s experiences are fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, respond and observe. 

Religious education 

In the foundation stage religious education drives the whole curriculum. Through engaging, practical, integrated activities, children can learn more about themselves, other people and the world around them and develop their religious knowledge, skills and understanding. Religious education plays an active contribution to the areas of learning outlined in the curriculum for the foundation phase but has a particular and important contribution to personal and social development, communication and language, literacy, understanding of the world, art and design. 

Characteristics of Learning

There are three main characteristics of learning outlined in the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum.

  • Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things and “have a go”.
  • Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties and enjoy their achievements.
  • Creativity and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas and make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

At St. Adrian’s we focus on learning behaviours and developing the language of ‘how I am learning’.  Our learning super heroes help us talk about how we are learning:

English

English is at the heart of everything we do.

It opens up endless worlds and helps us share and achieve our dreams. English knits everything we do together and gives us our voice. In our learning across the curriculum, we gain the confidence and skills to use our voice effectively: to share our ideas, to stand up for what is right and to achieve our goals and ambitions.

Reading

Learning to read is one of the most important things that we can do.

Reading unlocks new avenues of knowledge, fires our imaginations, enriches our vocabulary and helps us to understand and value the diversity of the world we live in.

There are two skills we need in learning to read: word reading and comprehension.

Skilled word reading involves swiftly recognising the printed words that we know, whilst rapidly working out how to say those words that are less familiar. To do this, we need to understand that the letters on the page are linked to sounds in spoken words. This is why phonics is so important in our early teaching of reading

Good comprehension brings together our knowledge of language and our knowledge of the world. Our teachers use their skills to help us develop comprehension skills through our shared reading, our reading lessons and through discussions of stories, poems and non-fiction.

We teach phonics and early reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. You can find out more about our approach to phonics and early reading here.

In key stage two, we teach reading every day. Our learning is rooted in high quality texts and shares the thematic approach of our learning in English. This supports children to become critical readers and encourages them to make comparisons and connections between the books that we explore each half term.

We think it is important to read widely across fiction and non-fiction. Collins Big Cat Phonics for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised is our reading scheme in foundation and year one, and Collins’ Big Cat is our core scheme as we explore and extend our reading preferences beyond phonics in year two and throughout key stage two.

Our reading scheme helps us to grow as fluent readers. Everyone has a reading book selected from the reading scheme. Our teachers choose the colour band of the book carefully to match the instructional level of reading. This is the level where we have the ‘right’ amount of challenge for developing and practising new reading strategies.

In tandem with our reading scheme, we choose our own books to read and share from our class and school libraries, from home and beyond. This gives us the chance to explore different story-worlds, topics and authors and to find out what kind of books we really love.

We know that reading for enjoyment is important. We know that there is a strong link between reading for pleasure, how well we do at school and our emotional well-being. The adults in our school read to us daily and this helps to spark our different interests and fuel our love of reading.

By the time we leave St Adrian’s, teachers make sure that we can read fluently and with confidence in any subject.

The teaching sequence for writing

Our teaching in English is rooted in our shared enjoyment of high quality texts.

Across each half-term, our English lessons are based on a wide range of significant and high quality children’s literature. The books we learn from are are chosen to engage, challenge and support us to become confident and informed writers.

We are taught new skills at the start of each year that reflect the expectations of the national curriculum. The cyclical approach of the teaching sequence for writing enables us to practise, secure and master these skills across the year and to build upon the foundational learning of previous year groups.

Children’s progress through the curriculum is summarised in the following documents.

Year 1 – Progress through the curriculum
Year 2 – Progress through the curriculum
Year 3 – Progress through the curriculum
Year 4 – Progress through the curriculum
Year 5 – Progress through the curriculum
Year 6 – Progress through the curriculum

Through shared reading, we are immersed in the world of the author. Through our talk and through shared writing, we learn to imitate the authors we read and to innovate with the ideas we encounter. As we grow in confidence, we use our ever-expanding writer’s tool-kit to invent, create, edit and author our own texts.

Our Strands Tracker tracks the development of our writer’s tool-kit across the key stages.

Intent

During this academic year, from September 2023 through to July 2024, we are reviewing our long-term plan for English to make stronger links with our learning in other areas of the curriculum. We will also be sharing some brilliant books as a whole school. The first of these is Oliver Jeffer’s ‘Here We Are.’

As we make these changes, the texts that we root our learning in may not correspond with those linked below.

Year 1

Click on each year group’s bookshelf to view our curriculum intent for each year group.

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6

Spelling

It is important to be able to spell quickly and accurately.

We learn to spell by knowing the link between letters and sounds and by understanding how words and spellings are structured.

We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school. You can learn more about our approach to phonics teaching here.

Following phase 5, we use ‘No Nonsense Spelling’ which has been written to meet the spelling requirements of the national curriculum for year two through to year six.

Our spelling pathway details the learning for each year group.

Handwriting

Neat and fluent handwriting is an important part of sharing our ideas.

When we first learn to write, we learn to print our letters. Our learning in phonics helps us to learn the correct letter formation for each grapheme and make the link between the mnemonic of our phonics programme and the letter.

Once we have learnt to form each letter correctly, we begin to learn how to join digraphs. This is usually in Year 1.

In Year 2, we begin to learn to join all of our writing. We learn to join our letters using a script developed by Debbie Hepplewhite. This is a style with two main joins: a diagonal join, which starts on the line, and a washing-line (or smile) join.

By the time we reach the end of key stage two, we can write confidently and legibly in joined handwriting when writing at speed

You can find more about our handwriting style here.

Our Grammar Glossary details the grammatical concepts taught in each year group. You will see that new learning for each year is identified and sits alongside learning from previous classes.

Year 1 Grammar Glossary
Year 2 Grammar Glossary
Year 3 Grammar Glossary
Year 4 Grammar Glossary
Year 5 Grammar Glossary
Year 6 Grammar Glossary

Further Useful documents

The national curriculum in England: English programmes of study

Modern Foreign Languages

French is introduced in Year 3 and studied weekly with a French specialist teacher until the children leave at the end of Year 6.

At St Adrian’s we endeavor to make lessons stimulating and enjoyable and build confidence through lots of praise. We aim to foster an interest in language learning by introducing children to the French language in an inclusive way that is accessible to all pupils.

We aim to develop children’s confidence in speaking in the target language by encouraging them to join in songs, rhymes stories and games, which enable them to practise the language in an enjoyable and non-threatening way.

We strive to help our pupils develop their awareness of cultural similarities and differences. We seek to lay the foundations for future language study by our pupils whilst supporting linguistic understanding of their first language.

Key documents

St-Adrian’s-long-term-plan-for-MFL

National Curriculum for MFL

Topics at a glance

*Coming soon

Recommended resources  for practising French at home

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primarylanguages/french

For mobiles and tablets: Mindsnacks French – fun interactive French games on a downloadable app.

Online safety help and resources for families

We all want our children to benefit from a great resource like the Internet. In this digital age, children are increasingly spending more of their time online with their devices. They will be going online for school work, to keep in touch with friends, to play games and to explore new things.

Being online can be a very positive experience but, as always, we need to be aware of the risks too. That’s why schools and parents need to work together to help educate our children about how to use the Internet responsibly and safely.

If you would like to work with your children at home on how to be online safe – and we strongly urge you to – you might like to look at the following resources that we use to support the online safety elements of our computing curriculum.

In Key Stage 1, we use the Childnet ‘SMART with a Heart’ resources. There are videos and other resources designed to help you have discussions with your children about what some of the issues might be when they are online, and what they can look out for and do to help protect themselves. With Year 1, we use the Smartie the Penguin resources (also available for Year 2) and with Year 2 we use the ‘SMART with a Heart’ videos to guide discussion.

In Key Stage 2, we use the Be Internet Legends resources (created by Google in partnership with Parentzone). The resources provide a good mix of discussion-based and practical activities, reinforced by the excellent Interland games.

Please also look at our Online Safety Resources Guide which signposts the main organisations and websites providing parent and carer advice on matters of online use and safety. New information and articles are added all the time, so keep checking back, or sign up for free newsletters such as those provided by Parentzone .

For families with children in the EYFS, there are many resources to be found through our guide that will help you establish good habits and ground-rules from an early age.

Remember, it is never too early to start thinking about online safety and well-being.

Science

The Science curriculum at St Adrian’s will make provision for:

  • pupils’ natural curiosity to be encouraged and nourished so as to foster a sense of awe and wonder at the limitless beauty and diversity of the world and beyond;
  • Stimuli  which challenge the pupils to ask questions;
  • engagement and relevance to the pupils;
  • opportunities for children to hone the generic skills of collaboration, independence, research, and reflection;
  • pupils to regularly employ the key scientific skills of making predictions; planning experiments; making observations; taking measurements, presenting data and drawing conclusions based on the results;  discussing the limitations of their empirical findings; and conduct experiments with due regard for safety;
  • the acquisition of the scientific knowledge and skills stipulated in the National Curriculum;
  • opportunities to refine and build upon existing skills and experiences;
  • equipping the pupils for secondary school education and setting them on the road for life-long learning;
  • empowering the pupils to make a positive difference to their community and to society in general.

Key documents

National Curriculum – Key Stage 1 and 2

Whole School Skills Map

Topics at a glance

Autumn 1Autumn 2Spring 1 Spring 2Summer 1Summer 2
Weather and seasons - BBC Teach Materials - KS1 Science - BBC BitesizePlants - Year 1-2 / P2-3 Science - This Term's Topics - Home Learning with  BBC Bitesize - BBC Bitesize Animals, Including Humans Year 1 - Science ResourcesWeather and seasons - BBC Teach
Year 1All about Me Seasonal
changes
MaterialsPlantsAnimals including Humans Seasonal changes
Plants - Year 1-2 / P2-3 Science - This Term's Topics - Home Learning with  BBC Bitesize - BBC Bitesize Materials - KS1 Science - BBC Bitesize Plants - Year 1-2 / P2-3 Science - This Term's Topics - Home Learning with  BBC Bitesize - BBC BitesizeHabitats – Year 1-2 / P3-4 Science - This Term's Topics - Home Learning  with BBC Bitesize - BBC BitesizePlants - Year 1-2 / P2-3 Science - This Term's Topics - Home Learning with  BBC Bitesize - BBC Bitesize
Year 2Plants Everyday
Materials
Humans and other animalsPlantsHabitatsPlants
Rocks, soils and fossils - KS2 Science - BBC BitesizeScience - Animals including Humans - Skeleton and Muscles Word Mat -  GrammarsaurusLight - Year 3 Science Resources
Year 3Forces and Magnets Rocks Animals including humansSee Spring 1Light and DarkPlants
Electricity - Year 3-4 / P4-5 Science - This Term's Topics - Home Learning  with BBC Bitesize - BBC BitesizeStates of matter in KS2 | Learning about solids, liquids and gases in  primary school | TheSchoolRunFamous Scientists For Kids | Cool Kid Facts
Year 4Electricity SoundStates of MatterNotable ScientistsAnimals including humansLiving things and their Habitats
Year 5 Code the Solar System – St. Martin's C of E Primary schoolTerm 5 Overview – Shinewater Primary SchoolForces - Year 5-6 / P6-7 Science - This Term's Topics - Home Learning with  BBC Bitesize - BBC Bitesize
Year 5See Autumn 2 Earth in
Space
Material Properties and States of MatterSee Spring 1Animals including humans/
Living things and their Habitats
Forces
Evolution and Inheritance | Science | KS2 Year 6 Classification - starting to use keys | Teaching Resources Light - Year 3 Science Resources Electricity - Year 3-4 / P4-5 Science - This Term's Topics - Home Learning  with BBC Bitesize - BBC Bitesize
Year 6Evolution and Inheritance Living things and
their
Habitats
Animals including humansLightElectricityNotable Scientists

Relationships and health education

Relationships Education has become statutory for all primary schools from the summer term of 2021. For all schools, Sex Education as part of the Science curriculum remains the same.

Key documents

Parent portal to the school’s scheme of work

Statutory government document

Teaching British Values

At St Adrian’s we promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of Law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.

We are committed to serving our community and local area and in so doing, we reinforce these British values regularly in the following ways:

Democracy:
Pupils have their voices heard through our School Council, Pupil Committees and Pupil Voice interviews. The process of pupil voting for the School Council contributes to the elections of Head boy, Head girl and School Council representatives.

British Value in action: We help to make decisions that improve our school

The Rule of Law:
The importance of laws and rules are consistently reinforced in the classroom, as well as through school assemblies. Pupils are taught to understand the need for laws, the responsibilities that this involves and the consequences when laws are broken.

British Value in action: We understand that rules help us to be safe and happy

Individual Liberty:
Pupils are encouraged to be independent learners, constantly making choices, within a safe and supportive environment. Pupils are encouraged to understand their personal freedoms and are taught how to use these rights to best effect. All pupils are keen to support charities, whether local, national or global. They are taught consideration for others through our Religious Education curriculum and PSHE lessons.

British Value in action: We understand that freedom comes with responsibility

Mutual Respect:
Our school’s ethos and our behaviour policy are based on Gospel values, with the important commandment being, ‘Love one another as I have loved you’. Assemblies constantly promote respect for others and the importance of good manners. All pupils are taught the importance of self-respect, honest and open communication with others and fair play. Pupils work collaboratively and value others’ opinions.value others’ opinions.

British Value in action: We have respect for ourselves and for others

Tolerance of those of Different Faiths and Beliefs:
As a Catholic worshipping community, pupils are reminded of their place in a culturally diverse society. This is achieved through our Religious Education curriculum and the spiritual life of the school. Assemblies and class work promote the diversity of society and the right for each person to be respected and valued equally regardless of ability, gender, faith, heritage or race. Members of different faiths or religions both within and outside the school community are invited to contribute through sharing their knowledge and to enhance learning within assemblies and in class.

British Value in action: We understand and accept that our friends may have different beliefs and opinions

Maths

Intent

Because maths is something that we will need to use every day, mathematics holds a very important part in our curriculum at St Adrian’s.   We aim to ensure that children develop an enjoyment and enthusiasm for maths that will empower them and stay with them throughout their lives.

At St Adrian’s we teach mathematics through a maths mastery approach.  Our aim is to develop a positive culture of deep understanding, confidence and competence in maths that produces strong, secure learning.  In this way, children become mathematically fluent, have a ‘can do’ attitude and are eager to use their maths skills to explore different strategies and reason and solve problems.  These problems are directly linked to the diverse world in which we live, so that children are able to make connections between mathematics and their everyday lives.

Implementation
Maths in the Early Years

The characteristics of effective learning underpin all learning in the Early Years.  We make sure that every child, whatever their starting point, has the best start that they possibly can.  High quality learning through purposeful play is provided in a stimulating and motivating environment that responds to the interests and needs of the children.  Using resources from the Whiterose programme, children learn about number, pattern, shape  and measures in all areas of their learning, so that they can make connections.

Play is what children and young people do when they follow their own ideas and interests, in their own way and for their own reasons.  We believe that deep understanding is achieved when children are given plenty of time to play and explore and lead their own active learning.   If children discover things for themselves, they are much more likely to remember it.   With plenty of  time provided for substantial conversations, high quality teaching and questioning from Early Years practitioners encourages children to think critically and test their ideas.

Early Years practitioners attend training, specifically linked to maths and spend time each week discussing the needs and interests of pupils in order to take learning forward in the best possible way.

 Maths in Key Stage One and Key Stage Two

We use the Whiterose scheme of work which have been written to meet the requirements of the 2014 English national curriculum. The Whiterose scheme of work has been assessed by the DfE’s expert panel, which judged that it met the core criteria for a high-quality curriculum to support teaching for mastery.

Longterm plan: Yearly overviews that show what topics are taught when can be found here:

  • For further information on the core concepts underpinning our mathematics curriculum and to explore progression within these, view these Parent Videos that can be found on the Maths – Whiterose Website.

National Curriculum: Mathematics Programme of Study

Across the school, the structure of the mathematics curriculum shows clear progression in line with age related expectations.  Vocabulary is displayed clearly on working walls and is referred to in every lesson.  At all ages, pupils learn to use concrete resources and pictorial representations, which enables them to fully understand mathematical concepts when they are presented in more abstract equations or problems.  New curriculum content is taught in blocks, which breaks down the teaching sequence into small achievable steps to deepen understanding.  In addition, key mathematical knowledge and skills are revisited daily to embed learning as this maths fluency is vital for pupils to reason and solve problems.  In this way, children receive a minimum of five maths learning sessions each week with additional daily activities devoted to number fluency and times tables. 

This approach enables pupils to progress through the curriculum content at broadly the same pace.  Marking and feedback, including verbal feedback is used to take children’s learning forward.  End of topic review sheets are used as a diagnostic tool so that any gaps in understanding are addressed and to ensure that any necessary interventions are targeted specifically to meet the needs of children.  Where children require additional support, ‘scaffolds’ are used to support children further to ensure that they have secured the small step. These ‘scaffolds’ may be in the form of returning to concrete resources or pictorial representations or making  connections with concepts that children are already secure in.  Pupils who grasp concepts quickly deepen their learning through the challenge of rich and sophisticated problems within each topic.  In this way, our maths curriculum matches the needs and abilities of each of our children to ensure that all pupils are able to excel.

Times tables play an important part in our maths learning, with children developing their fluency in rapid recall of tables up to 12 x 12 by the end of year 4.  Pupils deepen their understanding by starting with concrete resources and moving onto pictorial representations before learning each times table as a more abstract equation.  While the rapid recall of times tables is developed, children also learn how to apply and manipulate their understanding of these to reason and solve problems.  

Impact

By the time that they start secondary school, we aspire that a St Adrian’s mathematician will have a bank of efficient and accurate maths skills that they can use to solve problems and calculate effectively.  Through the use of a Concrete Pictorial Abstract approach, they will have a deep understanding of maths concepts and will be able to justify, reason and explain their answers articulately.  They will have a range of efficient strategies to draw upon if an initial method does not work or if an answer does not make mathematical sense. Children will also be able to apply these calculation and maths skills across the curriculum and are confident to choose the best maths to complete a task.

Helping your child at home

All KS2 children have a subscription to Times Table Rockstar which has a wealth of games that the children love to play to improve their recall of multiplication facts.  KS1 children all use Numbots as part of their home learning activities to speed up and improve the accuracy of their number calculations. ttrockstars

The Oxford University Press have developed this site to support parents in helping their children with mathematics. You’ll find lots of advice and support, games and activity ideas for how best to help your children develop as a mathematician. There’s also information on what is taught in primary school maths lessons, and what some of the ‘jargon’ means! Maths – Oxford Owl

The Natwest have this great site for helping children to develop money sense: Money Learning Resources

Playing maths games

 Maths games don’t have to be computer-based; there are lots of ways you can bring maths to life for your child through simple games and activities. Whether out shopping, using the concept of money to develop your child’s arithmetic skills, or helping them to better understand measurement when baking or putting together the new rabbit’s hutch, there’s always an opportunity for a maths moment!

Board games can be great for developing a child’s maths skill. Children will become comfortable in pattern spotting and playing with numbers. These include: Monopoly, Snakes and Ladders, Shut the Box, Darts, Dominoes and Mancala.