KEY STAGE 1 CURRICULUM

Introduction

At Trafalgar Community Infant School we aim to offer a broad, balanced, relevant and differentiated curriculum to all Key Stage 1 children.  The class teacher monitors each child's progress very carefully, and our aim is to ensure that each child achieves his or her full potential, whatever his or her ability.

All schemes of work and curriculum policies meet the requirements of the National Curriculum.  Our curriculum is planned mainly through topic work, which is an integrated approach to learning basic subjects.  The context for the topic work draws immediately from the child's environment and community, which we believe is the most effective way of implementing the curriculum for the child.  The community is seen as a key resource and integral to the work of our school in developing children's skills, concepts and attitudes.

We have a team approach to the teaching of literacy and numeracy.  The children are taught as a class, or as a group, and at times, individually.  The children are encouraged to work independently and collaboratively.

The National Curriculum is divided into three core subjects: English, Mathematics and Science. The foundation subjects are History, Geography, Design Technology, Music, Art, Information Communication Technology and Physical Education. These areas form the National Curriculum and as a state funded community school we have a statutory requirement to deliver this curriculum. Alongside this we teach Religious Education (through the West Sussex locally agreed syllabus) and Personal, Social, Health and Cultural Education. 

Religious Education

This is based on the Christian faith and other major world religions such as Judaism and Islam. We encourage the children to learn tolerance towards people of other cultures through an understanding of their rituals and beliefs.  This is achieved through the planning of multi-faith topics which will also touch upon Hinduism and Buddhism in relation to festivals, rites of passage and places of worship.

Daily assemblies are held to help each child realise that school is an extended family to which they belong.  We aim to promote a caring environment where children are sensitive to the needs of others and the world around them.  This is achieved by selected themes, stories and poetry, and by inviting members of the community into assembly.  Inherent in the daily assembly is a collective act of worship.  We attempt to cater both for the needs of children who have a Christian commitment and for those whose experience of worship is more tentative and exploratory.

Whilst parents/guardians have the right to withdraw their children from these daily acts of worship, they are encouraged to allow their children to attend, if only as observers, in order that no child is excluded from the corporate ethos of the school.  Children who are withdrawn from assembly are supervised in the school library where they are asked to read a book during this time.  We encourage local faith leaders to contribute to our assemblies and we are privileged to be able to invite ‘Ready Assembled', a group from Trafalgar Road Baptist Church, who portray Bible stories through puppet shows in a termly assembly.

Mathematics

We hope that children will enjoy maths and the exciting challenge it offers.  Through practical first hand experience, we develop the children's knowledge, understanding and use of number, algebra, measurement, shape, space and data handling.  We also hope to develop a positive attitude to maths, an ability to follow new steps in logical thinking and the confidence to apply mathematical knowledge to everyday situations.

To achieve these aims, basic mathematics is taught separately from the class topic, although mathematical concepts are used within the topics wherever possible, notably for sorting and data handling.

We are extremely proud of the standards that the children have attained in mathematics, especially as measured in the national assessment tasks.  It is now a statutory requirement that we incorporate a numeracy session into each school day, which includes mental maths, a teaching group, and the practice and consolidation of concepts.

Language, Literacy and Communication

We aim for children to read fluently, accurately and for pleasure. We encourage them to use their acquired skills for reading fiction and for obtaining information. 

The school operates a ‘reading group' system in which the children are divided into groups according to their reading ability and attend a daily reading group for 15 minutes immediately after assembly. We operate a ‘split break' system whereby half of the children go out to play whilst the other half attend reading group. This is then reversed, so that all children have an opportunity to both read and to enjoy their break. The teachers will have had their mid-morning break during assembly time.

In the reading group, each child takes a turn to read whilst the others follow the text in their own copy of the book.  As the children read, the teacher takes opportunities to develop discussion about vocabulary, grammar, and the meaning of the text; the members of the group also explore their views about the author, the illustrator, and so on.  The group situation provides an opportunity to develop the higher-order reading skills of inference and deduction and comprehension, and also provides opportunity for reading aloud, practising expression and inflexion.

The children read with a teacher, a classroom assistant, or a parent/guardian, all of whom are ‘trained' for their role in the reading groups. It has been found that in addition to the ‘reading group' system being an efficient way of teaching young children to read and raising reading standards generally, it has other advantages. The groups rotate regularly, so that the children have the opportunity of reading with a variety of teachers and adults; moreover, teachers no longer have to devote a considerable part of their time in the afternoon to listening to their children read, and can therefore spend time giving quality teaching in other curriculum areas.

Speaking and listening skills are an integral part of the English curriculum and are an area that we plan and teach very carefully.  Communication skills are developed so that children can give and receive instructions confidently and converse freely with their peers and with adults.  We aim to develop children as writers using a broad and balanced curriculum as a vehicle.  We teach them to write accurately, neatly and legibly for a variety of purposes using correct form, punctuation and spelling.

Libraries

The school library, situated immediately inside the main entrance, contains a wide range of fiction, non-fiction and reference books.  In addition, the school borrows a considerable number of books from the County Librarian, which are exchanged three times a year for a new selection. Children are encouraged to borrow books from the school library to take home and share with their parents/guardians.  Each class also has its own library or book area which is stocked with topic-related non-fiction material as well as a range of fiction and poetry books.  The school employs a part-time library assistant.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World

Children learn of other cultures, of past events, of the work that people do, of the use of money, of the environment, and of animals and other living things.  They find out how things

work by experimenting, building, digging, and so on, and these experiences provide foundations for confidence in Science, Technology, History and Geography.

Science

We aim to provide experiences that encourage children to develop the skills of observation, classification, measuring, prediction, experimentation, communication and explanation.  We hope that through the exploration of living things, materials and forces, the children acquire knowledge and understanding of basic scientific ideas and develop a caring and enquiring attitude to life.

Design Technology

Through Design Technology children are challenged to design and make artefacts for their environment in response to an identified need.  They are encouraged to work from plans and critically evaluate their models.

Art & Craft

We aim to develop the creative ability of the child by encouraging experimentation with a wide range of materials, followed by the teaching of technique.  Aesthetic appreciation is developed by observing and discussing the work of great artists, together with evaluation of their own work.

Music

This is essentially a practical subject to be enjoyed by all.  The children are encouraged to participate in music-making in a variety of ways: singing, playing tuned and untuned instruments, listening and responding to extracts of different music from their own and different cultures. Singing is one of the strengths of our school and as a community we value the contribution music makes to our world.

Information Communication Technology (ICT)

ICT is acknowledged as an essential part of our lives.  We aim for each child to have experience in the following areas: word processing, using a database, graphics package, problem solving games to develop higher-order thinking skills and to use control technology.  All children have access to Interactive Whiteboards in their classrooms.  This resource will enable our cross curricular use of ICT to evolve.

Physical Education

Physical education covers the areas of gymnastics, dance and games.   There are regular lessons in all three aspects.  The school hall is easily converted into a gymnasium with apparatus suitable for the needs of young children. We also use our large playground to develop games skills.

Health and Sex Education

Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education encourages a healthy approach to the child's own life style.  We emphasise the importance of eating good food, keeping warm and clean, and recognising that our bodies are precious and important and need looking after.  Simple life cycles are taught in the science curriculum and together with the above ideas form the basis of our sex education programme.  Teachers always answer children's questions as and when they arise, as openly and as honestly as they can, and simple books are available in the school library.

Inclusion 

All children have their individual ‘needs' and we attempt to cater for these as part of the caring ethos we wish the school to have; legally a child is said to have a special need if they have to be catered for in a way that is significantly different from the rest of the children due to behavioural, emotional, medical or academic reasons.  Academic reasons include exceptionally able children as well as those with learning difficulties.

In order to ensure that all our children achieve their potential, we set termly targets for each year group.  Children who fall below expected targets are immediately focused upon, and if need be, placed on the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice.

Initially it may be a matter of monitoring the child to check suspicions and identify the ‘problem' more precisely.  If a problem is identified the school will provide interventions that are additional to, or different from those provided as part of the normal classroom provision.  An Individual Education Plan (IEP) will be written and discussed with parents. Legislation refers to this as Early Years Action' or ‘School Action'.  This IEP rarely covers the whole curriculum, only the aspect that is causing concern.  It may be a matter, for example, of making provision for a child to have an extra 10 minutes individual help with reading each day, or making an incentive chart to modify behaviour.

The IEP is reviewed after an appropriate period of time, usually termly, when the decision is taken to continue, modify, withdraw or extend the provision being made.  Sometimes the school needs to seek advice from outside agencies such as the educational psychologist, an occupational therapist, or other appropriate agency. This will only be undertaken after parental consent.

If as a result of the advice received the child's needs are considered to be so significant that the school requires additional resources to cater for the child, and then an application is made to the Local Authority for the child to be given a Statement of Special Educational Need.  The statement is a legal agreement between the parents/guardians and the LA concerning the provision for the child.  Parents/guardians are always kept fully informed about the progress of their children, whether or not they have a ‘special need', but they should not hesitate to contact us for an update at any time.