Intent

Implementation

Phonics

At Christ Church 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 Christ Church, 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.

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:

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.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

Reading

At Christ Church, we want our children to be prolific readers.

We want to foster pupils’ key knowledge skills and attitudes for them to be able to read for pleasure and for learning.

By the time children leave our school, they will have a strong reading foundation that will enable them to further develop their reading skills in secondary school and beyond as future citizens.

Reception, Year 1 & Year 2

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.
• In spring 2 in year 2 we will start a Destination Reader style shard reading session (see below) followed by reading at the child’s instructional level.

Key Stage 2

Destination Reader is the approach we use for teaching reading in KS2. It involves daily sessions incorporating whole-class modelling, partner work and independent reading. Children deepen their understanding of the texts they read through different reading strategies and language stems. Destination Reader is designed to support children’s comprehension and develop children’s motivation to read broadly for pleasure and purpose.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

English

At Christ Church, we aspire for our children to be competent writers, capable of clearly expressing and communicating their ideas using Standard English.

By the time children leave our school, they will acquire a strong set of writing skills to further develop in secondary school and beyond. We want our pupils to enjoy the process of writing and to feel pleasure in their abilities to turn their thoughts into well-crafted sentences.

• A clear progression map for writing is mapped out across the year groups
• We explore ideas for writing by mastering four purposes (entertain, inform, persuade and discuss)
• We teach pupils how to master grammar, punctuation, spelling and sentence structures for specific genres of writing. Pupils will learn to create their own texts through innovative use of these skills
• We develop pupils’ skills by robustly teaching in a logical sequence that facilitates deep skill development. Developing pupils’ knowledge and understanding through exposure to a wide range of genres, writing styles and authors
• We teach pupils to work in a reflective atmosphere of talk, to give and take feedback to improve their writing to readers
• Long and medium-term plans are used with varied texts to support writing
• Story mapping supports oral rehearsal, develops confidence and stamina
• Purpose planning boxes are used to identify and highlight the purpose, featurea of the genre and text type, including vocabulary and grammar
• Tool kits are created with the children to develop independence
• Short bursts of writing are used throughout the unit to practise key focuses of the text (e.g. persuasion) whilst rehearsing vocabulary, grammar and punctuation
• The writing process is modelled throughout the cycle of writing
• Children have the opportunity to plan, draft, write, edit and improve their writing
• Working walls are used with ambitious vocabulary to reflect the writing cycle

• Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

Mathematics

In maths, Christ Church will: 

• Cover the three aims of the National Curriculum: fluency, reasoning and problem solving.  
• Identify the relative links between Maths and the real world. 
• Promote a sustained and deepened understanding by employing a variety of mastery strategies, with teaching for conceptual understanding at the heart of everything we do.  
• Provide all children with full access to the curriculum, enabling them to develop independence, confidence and competence  
• Develop their Mathematical language and communication skills

Children at Christchurch follow the White Rose schemeof learning in Nursery to 6 alongside DFE Maths Guidance, Mathletics, Testbase and I see reasonings.  

Why? 

• The White Rose curriculum has a clear progression of skills. This gives pupils the opportunity to ‘master maths’, by using previous learning throughout the school year.  
• White Rose helps children to develop their Mathematical language and communication skills by encouraging all pupils to answer mathematical questions in full sentences with a focus on the correct mathematical vocabulary and through the use of sentence stems for mathematical reasoning. Mathematical vocabulary is shared at the start of each lesson with an expectation that this is used during ‘Talk Tasks’ with their peers and throughout the lesson. 
• DFE Maths Guidance supports staff to select which topics need to be mastered before moving on. This is to ensure that the number of gaps in children’s learning are being reduced, especially between year groups. 
• White Rose’s Flashback 4s ensure that the key knowledge identified in the DFE guidance is constantly revisited and therefore stored in the children’s long-term memory. 
• I see reasonings and Test Base are used to ensure that all children are given the opportunity to deepen their understanding through reasoning style questions.  
• Mathletics, which now follows the White Rose curriculum, is used to give the children the opportunity to practise what they have learned in school as part of their Home Learning.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

Religious Education

In a Church of England school, Religious Education should be considered as an academic subject. At Christ Church school, we follow the LDBS scheme of work to provide learning in RE which:

• Enables children to become religiously literate
• Develops the skills of

• Critical thinking
• Engaging critically with texts
• Asking deep and meaningful questions
• Making connections within and across worldwide religions and world-views

• Enables children to make their own choices and decisions concerning religion based on a deep knowledge and understanding of religions, belief systems, values and practices.

Our RE schemes of work are from the LDBS and as a Christian school they focus on Christianity (2/3) and Other World Religions (1/3).

Throughout the units, the children reflect on 3 distinct strands – Theology, Philosophy and Human Sciences.

These strands assist the children to learn both about and from the topics studied as they apply their learning to their own daily life and spirituality.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

History

Our school’s History curriculum is designed to teach our children

• To have a secure chronological knowledge of these British Isles and other parts of the world.
• To make connections between different eras and between the past and today.
• To understand domain-specific vocabulary and trends in history.
• To understand that historians use different sources of evidence.

Children articulate their understanding by writing ‘essays’.

Children at Christ Church follow the Pearson History programme from Years 2-6. Reception meet the ELG through text, while Y1 use units from the Reach Out Curriculum.

• The schemes are sequenced intentionally to support chronological understanding and domain-specific vocabulary and knowledge.
• Through the teaching of knowledge, themes such as cause and consequence, types of evidence and change and continuity are covered – KS1 discuss what is history?
• All children are given the opportunity to complete a written assessment at the end of each unit.
• Knowledge Organisers and retrieval practice lend themselves to LTM – home learning.
• The curriculum supports teachers.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

Geography

Our school’s Geography curriculum sets out

• To cover the three purposes of geography: have contextual knowledge of significant places, understand the difference between physical and human geography, gain the skills to work geographically.
• To understand how both physical and geographical geography are often related and how it affects our lives today.
• To carry out ‘real’ geography so that children see its purpose.

Children at Christ Church follow the Reach Out Curriculum from Years 1-6. Reception meet the ELG through text.

• The scheme covers all areas in the curriculum.
• The scheme is sequenced in a way that guarantees the progression but recovering of knowledge, as well as a progression in working geographically.
• In each KS, there is an opportunity to carry out ‘real’ fieldwork.
• Knowledge Organisers and retrieval practice lend themselves to LTM – home learning.
• Supports teachers.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

Science

Our Science curriculum teaches children

• To cover the three purposes of science: knowledge, methodology and purpose.
• To have a secure understanding of substantive knowledge within biology, chemistry and physics.
• To be increasingly competent in carrying out scientific enquiry.
• To see where in the world we use science.

Children at Christ Church follow the Reach Out Curriculum from Years 1-6. Reception meet the ELG through text.

• The scheme covers all areas in the curriculum.
• The scheme is sequenced in a way that guarantees the progression but recovering of knowledge, as well as a progression in working scientifically.
• Knowledge Organisers and retrieval practice lend themselves to LTM – home learning.
• The curriculum supports teachers.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

PSHE / RHE

In PSHE, we have chosen a curriculum which crosses the whole school and that:

• builds social skills,
• grows emotional literacy,
• enables good mental health, nurtures children’s positive relationships with themselves and others,
• provides a whole-school approach to delivering this challenging work and
• makes this learning enjoyable and straightforward.

At Christ Church, we use the JIGSAW curriculum in order to provide high-quality learning in PSHE.

Each class receives a full JIGSAW lesson each week, following the structure as set-out in their planning documents. In this way, we cover all areas of the PSHE curriculum as prescribed by the DfE.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

MFL Spanish

Our Spanish curriculum aims to:

• Give children the communication skills they need to learn a language at Secondary School and to
• Give the children a grounding in one of the major European languages

Our schemes of work are based upon the QCA units and are tailored to build upon the 3 key elements of phonology, grammatical structures and vocabulary.

Through vocabulary learning, conversation and reading & writing, the children focus on their key language skills.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

Computing

At Christ Church School, our high-quality computing education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world. Computing also ensures that pupils become digitally literate – able to use, and express themselves and develop their ideas through information and communication technology – at a level suitable for the next stage in their continuing education and as active participants in a digital world.

Through our Computing curriculum we aim to demystify computing technology, the internet and communication systems for the children.

By the end of KS2 we aim to show that:

• The children know that computing and computers are human made.
• The children experience the breadth of computing.
• The children make computers do what the children want.
• The children understand the potential of computing.

Our curriculum document is based upon the expectations and recommendations of the National Curriculum.

Computing is embedded in the teaching timetable as a PPA subject, ensuring that children are learning and practising for at least 1 lesson of 1 hour per week at the very least.

All children have equal access to computing technology.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

PE

Our high-quality physical education curriculum inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically-demanding activities.

It provides opportunities for pupils to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness.

P.E. also offers our children an opportunity to grow spiritually in line with our vision of being their best in God’s creation and “Going for GOLD with faith.”

Our curriculum offers opportunities to build character and help to promote our school values.

Our programme of work covers all the expectations of the National curriculum and the long-term plan shows progression across the areas of gymnastics, dance, athletics and games (invasion, net, striking) from lower school to Year 6.

P.E. is embedded in the teaching timetable as a PPA subject, ensuring that children are physically active for at least 1 lesson of 1 hour at the very least.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

Music

At Christ Church School, we believe that music is an important and valuable part of a child’s life. Music is an avenue which allows children who may not be as able in other academic subjects to have a voice and an opportunity to express themselves and to work in or lead a team.

Therefore we intend that by the time they move on from our school, every child will have had an equal opportunity to begin to learn a specific instrument taught by specialist teachers.

Our music curriculum is provided by Brent Music Service.

Lessons are delivered weekly by a specialist music teacher, following a carefully designed, progressive programme of work. The lessons are carefully differentiated in order that all children have access to music making and there is sufficient challenge for those who are developing above the expected level.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.

Art, Design & Technology

At Christ Church, we value Art, Design and Technology as an important part of offering a broad and balanced curriculum.

As pupils progress, they should be able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art, design and technology. They should also know how art, design and technology both reflect and shape our history and contribute to culture, creativity and the wealth of our nation.

The school follows a high-quality Art, Design & Technology scheme of work (Kapow).

Kapow engages and aims to inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design, thus giving pupils every opportunity to develop their ability and nurturing their talents and interests.

Click on this link to see the progression of skills across the school.