CURRICULUM
Within schools the curriculum taught can be considered ‘explicit’ – tangible subjects connected with
the National Curriculum and beyond – and ‘implicit’ – which seeks to develop the whole child and is
a reflection of the ethos of a school.
At Blewbury School we ensure that our curriculum provides opportunities for all pupils to
learn and succeed:
• providing success through the provision of well-matched teaching, and individual learning targets
• ensuring provision of opportunities for technological development
• providing opportunities for the development of diverse learning skills
to enable the children to reach their potential as individuals;
• providing a broad and balanced curriculum
• ensuring continuing staff development and training
to help them achieve high academic standards;
• ensuring an engaging curriculum and programme of extra-curricular activities and visits
to create self-critical, highly motivated, independent, life-long learners.
We know that to achieve their potential, children need to be enabled not only to develop
knowledge, skills and understanding, but also to think creatively and critically. We need to
promote innovation and enterprise so that children can develop leadership and team skills
which will equip them as citizens and workers in the future.
We achieve this by:
• seeking to make learning enjoyable;
• appreciating that children learn in different ways and ensuring that lessons incorporate a range of
styles, facilitating aural, visual and physical learning;
• enabling children to work with staff to assess their own progress;
• knowing that knowledge, understanding and skill development are all-important, and developing a
thematic approach to learning that actively involves children;
• promoting interactive experiences with visitors and visits, which provide not only expertise but
also opportunities to learn in different ways;
• searching out opportunities and taking part in events locally, across the county and nationally,
encompassing sports, arts and music;
• greatly valuing the residential experience and providing opportunities for the children in each of
their four Key Stage 2 years;
• offering a wide range of extra-curricular opportunities to meet the diverse needs of our children.
Essential to the learning of this ‘explicit’ curriculum is the development of enduring values,
preparing children for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life:
• promoting participation through class discussions and school councils
• ensuring that parents, friends, staff and governors work together to support and enhance the
school
to learn to care for and respect each other, our school and the wider environment;
• enabling the development of relationships with schools in the local partnership and globally
• being an inclusive school community
to accept and understand people with different beliefs, needs and circumstances;
• ensuring that each child participates in community activities and that the local area is used as a
resource for learning
to have an understanding of the fabric and structure of our community;
• providing opportunities for children to be actively involved in collective worship and develop an
understanding of worth in their daily lives
to develop spiritually and have a growing knowledge of the Christian faith;
• providing opportunities for children to develop self-esteem, self-discipline and
responsibility.
to enable continuous development as responsible members of society, with the
knowledge that their actions and reactions impact on the lives of others.
CURRICULUM
What makes our curriculum different?
Our curriculum is exciting because we work to a theme and link our work together in cohesive units,
not as individual subjects. The children are excited and engaged, they are active learners, using
skills which help them to transfer their learning and equip them for life in the 21st century. They
become experts in their study.
Life isn’t divided into subjects and neither is our learning. Children are taught how to gain
knowledge and skills rather than concentrating on chunks of facts that can be forgotten.
Foundation Stage
Come and see.… We have fun learning.
Themes for 2013/14:
investigating ‘ice’
Foundation Stage
Nursery Rhymes,
Autumn, Light and Dark,
Bears, Christmas
Winter /penguins,
Once upon a time,
Family/Friends,
Spring/ Easter
Food and farming
Water
Summer
Key Stage 1
Houses and Homes
Light and Dark
Seasons
Toys
Dish of the Day
Seaside
Class 6 – Explaining their healthy
snack to the ‘Dragons’!
Key Stage 2
‘Innovation’ is the overriding theme for
the year
Bread – from grain to loaf
Structures - how the Romans changed
our lives.
Inventions – past, present and future
“Since the previous inspection, the
school has maintained the good quality of
teaching, increased the rate at which
pupils develop their writing skills and
improved the role of the governing body
in monitoring standards and challenging
senior leaders. These developments
show that the school has good capacity
to improve further.”
Ofsted 2012
“The school works well with other local
schools to provide an extensive range of
extracurricular and sporting activities
that parents, carers and pupils really
appreciate.”
Ofsted 2012
CURRICULUM
ENGLISH (Literacy)
The children’s learning centres around developing the following:
Speaking and listening skills
These are used extensively across all curriculum areas to aid discussion, and help children to work
collaboratively and express thoughts.
Reading
There is a strong emphasis on the use of phonics to start reading skills, as well as using picture and
context clues. Further skills involve inference, deduction and prediction – all skills which are
advanced through the thematic approach. There is a wide variety of books available for the children
to experience the joy of reading. Children are encouraged to bring a book home every evening and
share it with a parent. Skills are reinforced through guided reading.
Writing – composition, style, punctuation and grammar (including developing motor skills
such as handwriting and spelling)
Pupils write across a range of genres/styles.
‘Talk for Writing’ is used to develop both
confidence and ideas. Children learn to
formulate stories, create reports, write
instructions, describe events and use many
more fiction and non-fiction formats. Active
involvement in a theme, reading for research
and drama, as well as other first-hand
experiences, all enable writing for real effect.
Literacy is a vital skill because it enables all
children to build their self-esteem through
experiencing success as readers and
writers.
Well-developed literacy skills help children succeed in many other curriculum areas.
Reading allows children to access new thoughts and new worlds. It develops imagination and
empathy, and provides rich models for the children’s own writing. Guided reading and writing
supports the sharing of ideas and the development of skills.
MATHS (Numeracy)
Children start by building up their
understanding of numbers and then when
they have developed some understanding
of pattern, place value and the number
system, they start to calculate.
Children
start
to
use
algebraic
conventions from an early stage.
All the way through school the learning of
number bonds to 10 then 20 and 100 are
vitally important, followed closely by the
need to learn and know tables both as
multiplication and division facts.
Children are encouraged to learn doubles, halves and near doubles and to use
deductive reasoning.
The children explore 2D and 3D shapes, spatial awareness, measures, probability
and data handling, which involves graphical representation.
The children are expected from the start to use mental maths and consider strategies
for solving problems. They learn to make notes/jottings to aid their mental calculations
and only when the numbers become too large will they be encouraged to work out their
calculations on paper
CURRICULUM
SCIENCE
The science work covered at both Key Stages 1 and 2 is based very much on scientific enquiry,
exploration and investigation, and the skills of observation, asking questions, obtaining and
presenting evidence through fair testing and evaluation. All of these areas follow on from the
grounding already developed in the Foundation Stage. The areas of focus follow those closely
associated with Biology, Chemistry and Physics. They are:
Life processes in plants and animals
Habitats
Healthy living
Material properties/material changes
Sound and light
Electricity
Forces
Earth and beyond
Once again, these are taught through the themes if relevant and viable; otherwise they are taught
discretely.
ICT (Information Communication Technology)
ICT is used within lessons and taught as a discrete subject. Each classroom has an interactive
whiteboard which is an integral part of the presentation of work. The school currently has a
computer room with sixteen computers but this will soon be replaced by trolleys with laptops and
iPads, as well as having at least two computers in each classroom. We also have a set of 30 mini
notebooks for use in Key Stage 2.
The children learn to communicate using pictures and words, databases and spreadsheets, as well
as developing musical scores, creating storyboards and mind maps. Children are encouraged to
use digital cameras and movie cameras and to view their own pictures and films on the interactive
boards or incorporate them into multi-media presentations and there are also opportunities to create
animations.
GEOGRAPHY
Geography is covered mostly through our thematic work, incorporating rivers, coasts, mapping,
climates, mountains and environmental issues, among other areas. Children find out about their
own locality as well as contrasting it with others. This is done by visiting other local areas such as
Wantage and the Ridgeway. Our Year 4 and 5 residential visits also emphasise this with their
locations in contrasting localities such as Shropshire or Cheddar.
HISTORY
At Key Stage 1, history teaching focuses on children’s own living memory, and beyond this to their
grandparents and distant past. They learn the importance of placing events and objects
chronologically and begin to ask questions to find out more about places. They start to build up an
empathy with people from the past and realise that there can be more than one interpretation of any
situation or series of events.
The younger children sometimes focus on familiar situations to find out more about the past, such
as houses and homes in Blewbury, old toys, and the local Iron
Age hill forts.
The older children also make local studies but might focus on
the school or the church as well as the village in general. They
study aspects of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, Invaders
and Settlers, as well as Tudors, Victorians and Britain since
the 1930s. We may focus, for example, on being an
archaeologist, creating a Greek city, children in the war, or
Victorian holidays; once again, focusing on gaining historic
skills rather than trying to learn a multitude of facts.
KS2 Viking Day
DESIGN TECHNOLOGY
The children follow a cycle which involves
planning to a brief, making prototypes, building
the finished product, and then reviewing their
work. They need to work to create structures as
well as making malleable materials; some of
these should have mechanical parts. The
children also need to focus on food technology.
Briefs are grounded in the theme and can be
an important part of problem-solving.
ART
Art involves drawing, painting, modelling,
sculpture and printing. Children should gain the
experience of working with different media and
understand the techniques needed to use these
different materials.
They look at the work of other artists from this
country and around the world. Sometimes work
might start with a concept, looking at an
artefact, or from observations. The children are
encouraged to use good quality materials, and
again the context will be relevant to the year’s
themes.
CURRICULUM
MUSIC
Children are encouraged to sing within their
curriculum lessons as well as composing and
producing graphic scores. They listen to the work
of a variety of composers. Sometimes musicmaking will be linked with art and/or dance.
The three KS2 classes take part in whole class
drumming sessions, learning both African
drumming and Samba rhythms. There are also
opportunities to learn the violin, guitar and wind
instruments. This year all of Year 3 will learn
violin or cello as a whole class.
The children have the opportunity to perform by
producing class assemblies as well as Christmas
celebrations, and the Year 5 and 6 production
tends to be a musical.
The Year 1 children sing with other schools in the
Federation, as do the Year 3 children. The oldest
children perform in the Didcot Music Festival,
and the School Choir enjoys performing.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
As a school, we emphasise sports, ensuring
that all children are scheduled for 2 hours of PE
a week during school time. This covers games skills, dance and gymnastics at Key Stage 1 and in
addition, includes swimming, athletics and outdoor activities at Key Stage 2. Several classes receive
specialist teaching through Ignite Sports Group.
We plan the timing of lessons in order to
support the importance of exercise, fresh
air and the need to exercise various parts
of the brain in order to aid concentration
and achievement. We also use ‘10 out’,
which means ten minutes of quick
exercise outside between more intense
studying periods.
We also take part in a great number of
inter-school sports activities, as well as
challenging children to
compete within school.
CURRICULUM
PHCSE (Personal, Health, Citizenship and Social Education)
We place real importance on emotional intelligence and the understanding of our actions, helping
children to develop personally and socially in order to become good citizens. Pupils are encouraged
to be able to express opinions and contribute during ‘circle time’ as well as developing their class
contracts. This helps with decision-making during class meetings. Our school holds ‘Sparkes’ Club
which meets weekly, and helps to organise ideas around the school. Our oldest children entertain
the local senior citizens when they come for Harvest Tea, which all the children in the school help
to make and bake. These older friends are also welcomed to lunches throughout the year and in
particular at Christmas.
We create links throughout the school when we have book buddies, or classes which walk together
to Church. Our Year 6 children follow an Injury Minimisation Programme for Schools (IMPS) based
at Abingdon Hospital and a Junior Citizens course.
At Blewbury School it is very important to us that children succeed in all aspects of their lives. In
order to do this, it is essential that we both respect and encourage the varying intelligences that our
children possess. We give certificates of recognition each Friday which celebrate work and actions.
Our Year 6 children act as peer mediators to help resolve friendship issues for the other children
within school. They do this using a format which is called peaceful problem solving.
Our ‘Learning to Learn’ programme will also promote skills of responsibility and resilience.
R.E. (Religious Education)
At Blewbury School we follow the Oxfordshire
Agreed Syllabus: this means that we learn both
about religion and from religions. Our work is
mostly Christian-based, but at Key Stage 1 we
also learn about Judaism. In addition, at Key
Stage 2, we also learn about Islam and
Hinduism. It is particularly important that the
children in our school, where there is little
cultural diversity, learn about the way that other
people live their lives, and try to understand
more about their beliefs, as well as deepening
their understanding of Christianity. The school is
linked closely with the church and the associated
Rector, Father Jason, who leads acts of worship
in school and is willing to be interviewed by the children about his job. The areas studied include
the major festivals, buildings of worship, religious artefacts and beliefs.
HOMEWORK POLICY
The link between home and school is vitally important; as such, the regular completion of work at
home forms a crucial element of this mutually supportive process.
It is important that children understand the necessity for a regular commitment to extra study
without it becoming a burdensome activity which is counterproductive to the active learning in
school.
So we do expect: the regular sharing and reading of books,
the learning of phonics or spellings,
the learning of number bonds and tables;
but we try to make the rest a little more interactive for parents as well.
You may become involved in maths investigations or games and you will be expected to help your
child with projects connected to the theme. Some recent examples include:
• studying and making models of an area of Ancient Egyptian society; such as pyramids,
gods, burials, etc.
• making models of volcanoes
• creating a new Greek God.
By giving parents notice of the themes, it is also hoped that family visits may
support study. We also encourage families to use the websites and programmes
that we have purchased for home and school use, such as www.gridclub.com
(username: blewbury/password: endowed)