Until September 2023, we used The Hamilton Trust to guide our long-term and medium-term planning in English. For the academic year 2023-24, we have adopted Planning from ‘The Write Stuff’ by Jane Considine.  We have made this change because we believe the ‘The Write Stuff’ offers an improved structure with ambitious outcomes, which will better suit our cohort of pupils in Key Stage 1. We have chosen units of work which compliment our Science, History and Geography topics.  This will enable us to teach reading and writing across our curriculum in a more cohesive way.

	Year 1	Year 2
Autumn	Seasons (Non-Fiction) Firework Night (Poetry) The Train Ride (Narrative)	Little Red Reading Hood (Narrative) The Great Fire of London (Non-Fiction) Meerkat Christmas (Non-Fiction)
Spring	The Queen’s Hat (Narrative) When I Am by Myself (Poetry) Our Trip to the Woods (Non-Fiction)	Desk Diddler (Poetry) The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark (Narrative) Neil Armstrong (Non-Fiction)
Summer	Little Red Riding Hood (Narrative) Ice Planet Adventure Park (Non-Fiction) The Bear and the Piano (Narrative)	Big Cats (Non-Fiction) Milo Imagines the World (Narrative) If I Were In Charge of the World (Poetry)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In English for Reception and Year 1, our lessons start with Phonics from ‘Essential Letters and Sounds.’  In Key Stage 1 we will focus on aspects of grammar and sentence structure, as well as thinking around the content of a quality text, encouraging the children to talk about what is happening in the text, develop inference skills and make predictions about what might happen next.  Ultimately, we want the children to see links and similarities with books written by the same author, or with books that expand on a similar theme. We want to support the children as they make links with learning across the curriculum. This focused whole-class session will enable the children to rehearse what they will be writing about later in the lesson.  The teacher may model that writing, using the children’s ideas.

Following feedback from Ofsted, we brought forward our plans to introduce our chosen Systematic Synthetic Phonics Scheme, ‘Essential Letters and Sounds’ with a ‘soft launch’ after February half-term 2022. As we embed the new scheme, a key focus is the use of decodable texts to match children’s existing phonics knowledge, so that the books they read are fully decodable for each child; each child is expected to read each book 3-4 times, so that they develop more fluency.  In Year 2, we use our existing Colour Book Band scheme to supplement this and provide the children with a choice of books to take home and read for pleasure.

With the adoption of ‘Essential Letters and Sounds’ we are phasing out our teaching of cursive handwriting, meaning that from September 2022, our new Yr R intake are not taught cursive writing.  When children are in Year 1 and 2, they will be introduced to pre-cursive letter formation when they are ready, so that most pupils will begin to develop cursive handwriting before they leave our school at the end of Year 2. We are keeping this under review with the other schools in our Trust.

You can read more about the scheme here: Essential Letters and Sounds

We teach Maths Mastery. White Rose Maths is our planning structure and Maths is taught in each year group.  For Key Stage 1, we use ‘Power Maths’ as our Maths scheme. The children have daily Maths lessons in Years 1 and 2 for 4 days each week.  Each lesson begins with a ‘flashback’ to revisit different parts of the Maths curriculum and develop recall of these.

From September 2021, we have been included in the ‘Mastering Number Programme.’ This programme for Reception to Year 2 will develop solid number sense, including fluency and flexibility with number facts, which will have a lasting impact on future learning for all children. The programme also involves high quality, continuous professional development for teachers. ‘Mastering Number’ is a short session within the school day, rather like a phonics input.

We use ‘Purple Mash’ as our teaching scheme and online platform to structure how we teach and assess all aspects of Computing in Years 1 and 2.

Online Safety 

In Key Stage 1, we use the Kent Scheme of Work for Primary Science, published by The Education People. Each year group has its own distinct topics. 

Science Curriculum Overview

We use The Hamilton Trust to guide our Long-Term and Medium-Term Planning in both History and Geography, to ensure curriculum coverage and encourage a clear progression. Our curriculum has been written by the subject leader and is designed to build on prior learning from EYFS.

In History, we begin in Reception with self; the children talk about events in their own lifetime and are encouraged to think about similarities and differences between their own experiences and those of adults who are important to them.  The focus is how they have changed since they were a baby, where they fit in their own family tree, what life is like now compared to ‘long ago.’  Key vocabulary relates to the passing of time; days of the week, months of the year, seasons, long ago, last week/month/year, yesterday, now, next, tomorrow, next week/weekend/month/year. Stories are a great way of exploring this vocabulary and learning about things that happened in the past.

In Year 1 we continue to develop this vocabulary and learn about historical events/people within the last 100 years.  In Year 2, we progress to learning about events/people beyond living memory.

In a similar way, for Geography, learning in the Reception year relates to Understanding the World. The children learn about where things are, again with a focus on self; where things are in the classroom, where their ‘carpet space,’ tray and peg are; how to find their way around school.  They talk about places they have visited and their journeys. Key vocabulary is near, far, a long way away, nearby, maps.

In Year 1 the children learn about places beyond our school and the focus is on the village of Windlesham, with a key question prompting the use of field work to find an answer. In Year 2, field work is used to consider whether Windlesham is a good place to live.  The children learn about places beyond the village, with a focus on the countries and capitals of The British Isles, before learning about the 5 continents and the 7 oceans of the world. There is an opportunity to compare an area in the UK to a different area in the world.

We use the Kapow Primary Scheme to guide our Long-Term and Medium-Term Planning in Art, to ensure curriculum coverage and encourage a clear progression. The units include training videos for teachers, which are used before we teach each unit, to develop our teaching skills and focus on the key skills and knowledge we are teaching. 

Art and Design Long Term Plan

Art and Design Skills and Knowledge

We use the Kapow Primary Scheme to guide our Long-Term and Medium-Term Planning in DT, to ensure curriculum coverage and encourage a clear progression. The units include training videos for teachers, which are used before we teach each unit, to develop our teaching skills and focus on the key skills and knowledge we are teaching.

 

We use the Kapow Primary Scheme to guide our Long-Term and Medium-Term Planning in Music, to ensure curriculum coverage and encourage a clear progression. The units include training videos for teachers, which are used before we teach each unit, to develop our teaching skills and focus on the key skills and knowledge we are teaching.

We plan the music that the children listen to as they enter/leave for assembly; it is often linked to the music we listen to in our music lessons, though it also links to our Values and to our PSHE/RSE learning.  We have a ‘Singing Assembly’ each week, to practice and learn new songs, usually with a topical/seasonal theme.

Yr R and Key Stage One stage a production in December, which includes singing. 

 

We follow the approved Surrey Syllabus for Religious Education. RE is taught as a discrete subject in a block of lessons within a term/half-term.  We enrich this teaching with RE Assembly on Thursdays, in which the children learn about different festivals from Christianity, Hindu, Judaism and Islam; we look to highlight common themes and celebrate differences.

At Christmas, the whole school walks to St John’s Church in Windlesham for a carol service.  During Year 1, the children learn about aspects of Judaism.  During Year 2, the children learn about aspects of Islam. A thematic topic at the end of the year allows the children to explore a theme (e.g., Why do people pray?) which includes all faiths. This thematic unit enables the children to draw on prior knowledge to answer the core question posed; it gives the teacher an opportunity to assess how much knowledge the children have retained and applied, leading us to evaluate teaching and learning.

We use the Kapow Primary Scheme to guide our Long-Term and Medium-Term Planning in PSHE/RSE, to ensure curriculum coverage and encourage a clear progression. The units include training videos for teachers, which are used before we teach each unit, to develop our teaching skills and focus on the key skills and knowledge we are teaching.

We use ‘Trick Box’ to enhance this teaching, to teach the children strategies for self-regulation and wellbeing.  We use Kelso’s Choices to equip the children with ways to diffuse minor disagreements and empower the children to be assertive. 

RSE and PSHE Progression

Each class has a PE lesson each week.  In Summer Term 2023 we adopted a new scheme ‘Get Set 4 PE’ because it has an online platform with training embedded into planning.

For the academic year 2022/23, SCL coaching teach PE lessons to the classes in Key Stage 1, paid for from our staffing budget.  SCL also run Lunchtime Club Wednesday-Friday, to encourage all children to be active; this is funded by our Sports Premium budget.  SCL offer clubs after school to Key Stage 1 in the Autumn term and to all year groups in Spring and Summer Terms.  In addition, we use Sports and Health Week in the Summer term to enhance our teaching of PE and healthy lifestyles.  Our Sports Morning on the Friday starts with a whole-school team event, using a carousel of activities.  At the end, each class has ‘running races’, with small groups of individuals competing in each race.

Forest School is an important part of encouraging the children to be active outdoors; each class has sessions in rotation on a Friday morning.  Vicki, our Forest School Teacher, leads the sessions. Camo Day in June enables us to enjoy being outside together, reflect on camouflage in nature and learn ‘concealment in the copse.’