The Curriculum

The Tilian Vision:  

Our vision is to give our pupils the best start in life by providing an excellent grounding in key skills, as well as building character and developing confidence.  Our aim is to instil young people with the desire to reach their potential and to be responsible, compassionate members of the community who demonstrate respect for others. 

Kersey CE Primary School:

Our Vision – Achieving Potential together 

Our Values – We care; We believe; We strive; We aspire 

Our Aims – are to create a challenging curriculum, confident children and a caring community

Our Curriculum

At Kersey CE Primary School  our planned curriculum offer has our Framework for Independence at its core and delivers all areas of the National Curriculum including PHSE, RE and RSHE. Our taught curriculum is influenced by a repertoire of pedagogy, the adherence to our school’s vision, the leadership conversations, routines, rituals and provision and of course the learner’s dispositions. All this results in the curriculum experienced by the children.

We believe the experienced curriculum should; 

• Deliver real life opportunities which promote meaningful, purposeful learning challenges; 
• Teach children that learning is worth doing; 
• Create confident, capable communicators who participate effectively; 
• Provide inclusivity for everyone; meeting the needs and interests of all; 
• Encourage understanding of one’s own abilities and how we can be the best we can
• Promote learning as something done by communities
• Encourage curiosity leading to exploration and investigation of the world including a global outlook
• Help understandings of the disciplines of subjects; linking areas and making connection to deepen 

learning

• Engagement of the whole community; exposing and enriching talent
• Offers real choices to children, allowing reflective and creative thinking, independent enquiry and self-management.
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Our taught curriculum is driven by the following key influencing factors. 

Personal Attributes 

We believe children learn best when they:  

• Are taught how to think, learn and communicate effectively.  
• Are encouraged to be curious, ask questions, and develop an enquiring mind.  
• Value themselves and others.  
• Share a set of core values that reflect what it is to be a good learner, work well with others and be a contributing member of a community. 

Pupil Involvement 

We believe children learn best when they:  

• Are involved in their learning and have opportunities to take ownership and have responsibility. 
• Have opportunities to make meaningful choices, such as who to work with, what equipment they would like to use, and the method of presentation. 
• Are allowed to take risks.  
• They are given a voice
• Understand how they will be successful and measure their efforts and outcomes against this. 

Meaningful Links 

We believe children learn best when:  

• They understand the links between different areas of learning.  
• Learning is based on real-life experiences.  
• Learning relates to knowledge and skills necessary to manage their own life
• They can share their learning with others through whole school themes.  
• They can see how learning affects others and their environment (global and environmental dimensions).  
• They see how learning affects their lives 

Enjoyment and Achievement 

We believe that children learn best when:  

• Learning is fun and engaging.  
• They challenge themselves.  
• It is experiential 
• Learning is practical.  
• Learning is personalised.  
• They can work with pupils of similar ability and different ability irrespective of their age.  
• Contexts for learning are inspirational. 
• It promotes a joyous childhood

Effective Organisation 

We believe that children will learn best:  

• Within a planned cycle to ensure progression for all groups in classes.  
• When similar work is taught together to allow continuity of learning.  
• When teachers have the flexibility to respond to the needs of the children.  
• When children have opportunities to work with different groups.  
• When the whole environment – indoors and outdoors - is used for learning.

Through the curriculum provided, all our pupils will:

• Be Independent Enquirers
• Be Creative Thinkers
• Be Reflective Learners
• Show Confidence, Resilience and self-awareness
• Show Cooperation and be a positive member of Society
• Show Listening and attention skills
• Be aware of their own Health and self-care

This alongside the stated outcomes in each subject area can be monitored to demonstrate the impact of our provision. 

MONITORING AND ASSESSING 

We believe that effective assessment of pupils’ capability has the following features:  

• procedures which are not over-complex, were consistently applied and informed teachers’ planning  
• Teachers who identify the things pupils could do well and where they needed to improve  
• teachers who provide high-quality feedback to pupils to help them to increasingly take responsibility for their own learning  
• Pupils who understand why they had specific targets and how they might achieve them in their current work  
• teachers who ensure that consistent systems were in place to track and analyse pupils’ progress and attainment over time. 

At Kersey CE Primary School, we use a formative assessment system. Teachers assess children’s work by making assessments as they observe them working during lessons. They record the progress that children make by assessing the children’s work against the learning objectives for the lessons. This allows us to:

• set out steps so that pupils reach or exceed the end of key stage expectations
•  judge whether pupils are on track to meet end of key stage expectations
•  pinpoint aspects of the curriculum where pupils are falling behind and recognise exceptional performance
• support planning and teaching for all pupils
• report to parents and, where pupils move to other schools, provide clear information about each pupil’s strengths, weaknesses and progress

INCLUSION 

Kersey CE Primary School recognises the importance of inclusion and our curriculum offer ensures equal access to all pupils regardless of their ability, aptitude, race, religion or gender. A wide range of gender specific and cultural images and contexts may be used, and we will use these opportunities to challenge stereotypes. 

THE ROLE OF THE SUBJECT LEADER 

The subject leader is instrumental in the delivery of high-quality provision of their subject area.  The subject leader owns the subject and represents it well. Your role is to be the face and voice of your subject and support teachers to lead to improvement, encouraging and supporting their colleagues, inspiring learning, as well as monitoring and evaluating the outcomes. 

Academic Year 2021-2022

If you have any questions about the curriculum we are delivering, please speak to the Head Teacher. 

KS1 phonics and reading

In KS1 we follow 'Letters and Sounds'  for phonics supported by the use of Jigsaw Phonics, Phonics Bug, Espresso Education and Phonics Play. 

In reading we use the Phonics Bug and Oxford Reading Tree reading schemes. 

Times Tables Rock Stars

We use Times Tables Rock Stars in Y3-6.

Religious Education

Church of England schools in Suffolk are advised to use the Emmanuel Project scheme of work, which fulfils RE requirements for all schools and is based on the Suffolk Agreed Syllabus.

Kersey School is now using the latest new edition dated 2020 and we value the opportunities it offers to our children for art, drama and  for profound thought, respectful discussion, reflection and debate.  Religious education also offers opportunities to discuss and learn about  British Values and to develop SMSC whenever appropriate.

The scheme focuses initially on Christianity and then builds on the children's knowledge by gradually introducing all 5 world religions over the two key stages.

Music

Violins in Key Stage 2 are taught through the Whole Class Ensemble Teaching from Suffolk County Music Service. There are other peripatetic music lessons available to children at Kersey, including guitar and piano.  

Modern Foreign Languages

All children in Key Stage 2 are taught French for one lesson of about 50 minutes per week.  Lessons are based around the Rigolo scheme.  In addition to this, a wide variety of resources including games, songs, rhymes and puppets as well as more extended texts and discussion about culture and life in France is covered.

We place great emphasis on helping children develop the confidence to speak French and the skills needed to start to understand both the written and spoken language.

Close liaison takes place with the MFL co-ordinator at our local High School, to ensure that all year 6 pupils are in a solid position from which to take their language learning further in KS3.

Within KS2 classrooms, there are visual displays (in French), which are used by children and class teachers alike to support the learning. 

PSHE and RSHE

Below is the curriculum map for Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE), including Relationships Education.

Our Relationships Education policy has been developed through consultation with all stakeholders at our school. We use our PSHE lessons to deliver the majority of the Relationships Education curriculum, using Science and other subjects to teach the remainder of this.