At The Canons CE Primary School, we pride ourselves on providing a curriculum that is tailored to meet the needs of our pupils.

We equip our children with the skills necessary to help them lead a fulfilling and rewarding life.

We are committed to providing a broad and balanced curriculum, rich in knowledge, essential skills and meaningful experience. This allows children the opportunity to engage with their local area, go on trips enabling them opportunities to learn in different environments and engaging with visitors to the school.

Maintaining this focus we can ensure that the children have the opportunity to enhance these skills through a range of themes. These are carefully structured to give a balance of learning opportunities and draw on children’s knowledge.

If you require any further information regarding our curriculum plans, please call our school office on 02476 312220 or email admin3302@welearn365.com.

Reading and Spelling at The Canons

At The Canons CE Primary School our aim is for reading to be at the heart of our curriculum and that every child will become a fluent reader. We want children to become fluent readers, understand a wide range of vocabulary and also show excellent comprehension skills when they read in order for them to reach age related expectations or make accelerated progress from their starting point. As well as this, we want children to develop a love for reading and read for pleasure on a regular basis, which we believe can help them break down any barriers and allow them to excel in their future.

Our curriculum is designed around the needs of the pupils in our school and there are a variety of approaches to enable the pupils to make good progress.

Reading skills are taught as part of the Literacy lesson, as we believe that it is important to think of Literacy as a whole with reading, writing and grammar interacting to create a fully literate individual. With this in mind, we have put reading at the heart of our curriculum, using a quality text to help with our planning, both in Literacy and across the curriculum, to engage the children whilst allowing them to acquire the necessary skills to be accomplished readers. We believe our teaching should be engaging and allow children to foster a life-long love of reading so texts chosen by teachers should reflect this.

Children learn to read using the Read Write Inc Phonics scheme which builds up learning individual sounds, blending them within words and reading fluently. Children begin the scheme in Reception and should finish it by the end of Autumn term in Year 2 if they are on track. They take home two reading books each week which are matched to the sounds they already know and ones they are currently learning. Book one (RWInc book) builds fluency as they practise this one in school in their phonics lessons and book two (Book Bag book) builds their decoding skills using sounds they know. All children also take home a free reading library book to share with their family.

When children in Year 1 and 2 have finished the Read write Inc scheme and have become fluent readers, they move onto a book band book which helps to build stamina and develop fluency and comprehension skills. The books bands are tracked up to the end of Year 3 which finishes with Brown and Grey band. Children also have a free reading library book to take home.

Once children have completed brown band books in Year 3, then they move onto the Accelerated Reader program in KS2. A Star Reader test is completed as a baseline and then repeated every half term which will give teachers the child’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), this, along with other assessments, informs teachers of which fruit band the children can chose from. Children read books from our class libraries within their ZPD and then quiz after each book. Fifteen minutes each day is timetabled for quiet reading where children can complete any quizzes. We also have a Millionaires’ Club where, at the end of the year, children who have read 1,000,000 words are taken on a trip to celebrate their achievement. Teachers also track children’s fluency level using a fluency assessment every half term and a PIRA test to assess their understanding.

Spellings in KS2 are taught as part of Literacy lessons using Read, Write Inc spelling programme which follows on from the synthetic phonics programme from KS1.

Research suggests that children’s acquisition of vocabulary can impact their understanding of the texts and the wider world and can impact on their future; therefore, we ensure children acquire the necessary understanding of Tier 2 and 3 words so as to fully understand what they are reading. We have implemented the Word Aware scheme to promote the importance of vocabulary throughout the whole school.

We recognise that reading, and particularly reading for pleasure, has a direct impact on cognitive and social communicative development. We aim to ensure children enjoy reading and are reading at, or above, the expected level for their age.

At The Canons C.E Primary School, Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) enables our children

to become healthy, independent and responsible members of a society. It aims to help them

understand how they are developing personally and socially, and tackles many of the moral, social and

cultural issues that are part of growing up. We provide our children with opportunities for them to

learn about rights and responsibilities and appreciate what it means to be a member of a diverse

society. Linking these to our British Values. Our children are encouraged to develop their sense of

self-worth by playing a positive role in contributing to school life, the wider community and increasing

their cultural capital.

We deliver the PSHE curriculum by utilising first hand experience and sharing good practice ensuring that the delivered curriculum  reflects the needs of our pupils. Through regular PSHE lessons, pupils are equipped with a sound understanding of risk and with the knowledge and skills necessary to make safe and informed decisions. We believe that the purpose of PSHE education is to build, where appropriate, on the statutory content already outlined in the national curriculum, the basic school curriculum and in statutory guidance on: ie, drug education, financial education, citizenship, personal safety, sex and relationship education (SRE) and the importance of physical activity and diet for a healthy lifestyle.

We believe that PSHE plays a vital part of primary education and needs to be taught regularly. We begin the year by completing the 'Protective Behaviours' unit of work that provides children with the skills and understanding of how to stay safe and to recognise when they are in unsafe situations. Completing this unit every year, also ensures that the children are reminded of what they can do to seek help if they are ever in an unsafe circumstance. Following on from this, teachers from all year groups have been provided with detailed planning from the JIGSAW scheme of work to follow throughout the year, focusing on a specific 'puzzle' each half term. This enables staff to ensure full coverage of PSHE and RSE is taught in their year group, with all year groups focusing on the same area of the curriculum at the same time. There are often occasions where teachers may feel it necessary to teach extra, specific PSHE lessons as a result of an issue arisen in their own class. PSHE is integral to the development of the children's values in order for them to become a positive citizen in a forever changing community. PSHE is also an important part of the school's collective worship, where children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural curiosity is stimulated, challenged and nurtured.

In addition to this, we aim to promote positive mental health for every member of our school community including staff, pupils and families. We pursue this aim using both whole school approaches as well as specialised, individualised and targeted approaches aimed at more vulnerable pupils. Pupils are encouraged to talk openly about their mental wellbeing and access support as and when required. We aim to provide pupils with the tools and strategies needed to cope when faced with challenges within school or home life and teach emotional regulation through a range of strategies including Zones of Regulation.

At The Canons CE Primary School all class teachers are responsible for providing a curriculum that is suitable for all pupils in the class, including those with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND) with support from the SENCo and Inclusion Team. We have high expectations for all pupils and are committed to ensuring our curriculum complies with the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014.  Additional information on this can be found in in our SEND Policy and Information Report