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Our Curriculum

The de Ferrers Trust Primary CurriculumDe ferrers

Curriculum Intent for the Trust Primary Schools:

We want to give our children the best possible education that we can offer. We want them to be successful and to enjoy learning and to move on to secondary school with the skills, knowledge and understanding that will enable them to thrive as citizens of the 21st century. We want them to be enthusiastic about learning and to be given the skills and knowledge that will open doors to their future educational and life success. We want our children to be caring; resilient and honest with a personal ambition to aspire to do their very best.

Our curriculum has, at its’ core, the National Curriculum, which we see as the basis on which we have built our Trust curriculum. We passionately believe that an exciting, engaging, and effective curriculum is essential to enable high quality teaching and learning to take place. We have designed our curriculum to ensure that it is based around developing skills and knowledge leading to understanding with concepts becoming embedded in children’s long term memory, enabling them to apply them across the curriculum. Our design allows for cross-curricular teaching, as we believe that this ensures that the content is relevant to pupils and this puts their knowledge into context.

The four schools all work under the umbrella vision of the de Ferrers Trust,

‘To ensure that all the children and young people in our care have the opportunity to fulfil their potential through achieving highly, regardless of their ability or background.’

The children are all taught the three core values of the Trust, to ‘work hard; be kind and choose wisely’.

Curriculum Implementation for the Trust Primary Schools:

We recognise that the school curriculum encompasses all experiences that we offer to the children.

We evaluate our school curriculum regularly to ensure that it continues to meet the needs of our children and context. Our curriculum defines what we want our children to know and be able to do by the time they leave our school.

Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage follow short topics that address the requirements of the EYFS Curriculum, and enable all children to make progress across the three Prime Areas of Learning and four Specific Areas of Learning. In Reception, the children engage in a structured phonics approach which enables them to develop early reading and writing skills. Our EYFS and KS1 curriculum has a strong focus on the basic skills of reading, writing and maths, as we know that children must have a good grasp of these skills in order to make progress across the wider curriculum as they move into KS2.

Children in KS1 and KS2 follow the school’s bespoke curriculum with a strong focus on the core skills of English and Maths. Our maths and English teaching is well-structured and we are confident that our delivery of the NC in these subjects ensures progression through the core skills. Our broader curriculum of most other subjects is designed by looking at the key skills, knowledge and understanding required by the NC; creating a foundation structure to meet these and then identifying appropriate topics to meet our children’s interests and context that will enable these skills to be taught.

Topics are designed to be relevant, motivating and engaging for the children and inclusive of all groups of children and individuals across the school.  We use elements of some commercial schemes and our rationale for these is contained within our subject policies. Schools in the Trust have made different choices on commercial schemes to meet their specific needs, but the whole school curriculum provides a coherent model across the four schools.

Learning outside the classroom is firmly embedded within our school curriculum. Children undertake regular educational visits linked to their Key Skills Curriculum topics, and make use of the school grounds and local area to contextualise and support their learning. Visitors to school are frequent and a regular feature with parents taking part in regular curriculum activities. We also actively support learning at home and share information with parents so that they are able to support and encourage their children outside of school.

Curriculum Impact for the Trust Primary Schools:

The impact of our curriculum is to develop well-rounded, confident children who exemplify our school values. Children achieve their personal best and are well prepared to leave us to move to the next stage of their education, ready for the exciting new challenges ahead.

To find out more about our Trust vision, philosophy and strategy visit:The de Ferrers Trust website

Richard Wakefield Primary CurriculumRW

Our Curriculum Intent

Whilst emphasising the importance of and developing the opportunities for collaboration each school has built upon this core to meet individual needs and contexts for our academy.

Here at Richard Wakefield C.E. Primary we offer a curriculum that is inspiring, engaging and enriched by our Christian values. Through our curriculum, we seek to enable all our pupils to reach their full potential through rich learning experiences that are relevant, inspiring and challenging. We want all our learners to have ownership of their learning and an understanding of the essential skills and knowledge they need to improve. We recognise, as educators, the need to celebrate individuality, nurture talent through different learning approaches and to encourage the inquisitive mind.  Our curriculum encompasses and maximises clear links to our local contexts, including our parish church, whilst enabling all our pupils to be educated about national and international perspectives as well.

Our Curriculum Implementation

At Richard Wakefield C.E. Primary Academy we have mixed age teaching due to the school numbers and the schools PAN (Published Admissions Number) being 45. This determines a two-year rolling curriculum programme, which enhances staff and pupil collaboration across paired year groups and the trust.

Our curriculum is evolving to reflect that our pupils are coming from an increasingly diverse set of backgrounds and experiences. The village itself provides a mixed catchment with a range of local interests such as Tutbury Castle, River Dove and local industry which stimulate learning but also there are everyday issues that impact on many of our young people’s lives that require education and support. This range of contexts has to be seen in our curriculum which has to be adaptable to meet changes seen.

How the mixed age teaching is organised varies on a year-to-year basis with the key driver being the social and educational needs of all the children concerned. Each year this process is reviewed and communicated to parents and carers.

In EYFS the curriculum is organised into topics led by both the children’s interests and relevant subjects both local and national. Our pupils enter reception from a broadly average starting point with this judgement based on effective transition and baselining. Phonics and early writing skills are based on the Letters and Sounds programmes with our maths using the early years White Rose materials. Key emphasis is placed on the home school partnership with family learning opportunities in place each term. 

Across KS1 and KS2 our teaching and learning is firmly based on the expectations set out in the National Curriculum

Our mathematics teaching is securely embedded within the mastery approach and is based, in terms of order and content, on the White Rose materials. All of our children are taught to have a deeper understanding of mathematical processes through opportunities to explore and demonstrate mathematical ideas, enrich their learning experience and deepen understanding. Our use of the concrete - pictorial - abstract strategy helps to cement knowledge so our children truly understand what they’ve learnt.  Our mathematics teaching encourages all our pupils to apply their knowledge and skills to a variety of contexts.

Reading and writing are an essential part of our curriculum; we offer an exciting and varied range of texts with the pupils being exposed to a variety of relevant and challenging materials for both reading and writing stimuli. Topic-linked texts are included in our curriculum wherever possible to enhance the children’s learning and as a tool for developing their skills as writers, enthusing the children with purposeful learning opportunities. We recognise the importance of text types, particularly picture books and link these from EYFS through to Year 6.

Whole class reading and individual programmes are given high priority with interventions in place from an early stage. Spelling, handwriting and grammar work is integrated and embedded into all aspects of our curriculum.

Our two-year rolling curriculum programme involves mainly half termly topics in KS1 and termly topics in KS2. These topics have been designed across the trust and are aligned where possible. Much of the content is common between schools but at times, it is tailored to meet the needs of the local context and the needs of our pupils. Each topic encompasses a range of subjects optimising links across the curriculum and have been designed to complement and build on one another with clear progression and links so that in subsequent year groups, they will be able to explore concepts deeper, applying their knowledge in different contexts.  Where a subject or part of a subject is best covered as a stand-alone area e.g. Science, PE then this is how it is delivered with reference to other subjects and skills made when required..

As a Church of England school our RE teaching is led and overseen by the Diocese of Lichfield’s Education department who provide the syllabus to follow and assessment processes to use. They make regular visits to support this process and the school is subject to a SIAMs inspection at least every 5 years.

Our Curriculum Impact

The impact of our curriculum is to develop well-rounded, confident children who exemplify our school values. Children achieve their personal best and are well prepared to leave us to move to the next stage of their education, ready for the exciting new challenges ahead.

Assessment of the Curriculum

Our assessment processes have been developed over time to encompass both formative and summative assessment processes. These enable us to make accurate judgements of both attainment and progress but we are mindful of teacher workload and endeavour to only collect data that both supports next steps in teaching and learning and guides us to develop our school curriculum. We are using NFER standardised tests for English and Maths and are developing an in-house assessment model for the foundation subjects across the Trust.

Accessible to All

As a school we strive to provide the best learning opportunities for all of the children within our care.  For information about how our school and curriculum is accessible to all please refer to our:

Individual School Additional Curriculum Information 

To find out more about the curriulum in different Key Stages, visit our class pages.