Exciting Curriculum Developments at Whitehouse Primary School: Empowering Every Child’s Journey

At Whitehouse Primary School, we are thrilled to introduce our new curriculum structure, which aligns with the NEAT Academy Trust’s progressive documents. This transition allows us to provide a seamless educational experience for your child, supporting their growth from cradle to career. We want to share the exciting details of our curriculum and how it enhances upon the National Curriculum, going beyond its requirements to ensure a well-rounded education for our students.

Our Curriculum Approach: Building on the National Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed to follow and enhance upon the National Curriculum, which sets out the knowledge and skills that children should acquire at each stage of their education. The National Curriculum provides a solid foundation, and we build upon it by incorporating additional elements that we believe are essential for our students’ holistic development.

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS): Building Strong Foundations

In the Early Years Foundation Stage, we focus on providing a nurturing environment where children can develop essential skills and knowledge across seven areas of learning. These areas include communication and language, physical development, personal, social, and emotional development, literacy, mathematics, understanding the world, and expressive arts and design. Our curriculum in the EYFS prepares children for future learning, laying the groundwork for their educational journey.

Key Stage 1 (KS1) and Key Stage 2 (KS2): Expanding Knowledge and Skills

As children progress into Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, our curriculum continues to build upon the foundations laid in the EYFS. We offer a broad and balanced curriculum that covers core subjects such as English, mathematics, science, and computing. Additionally, we provide a range of subjects including history, geography, art, music, physical education, and modern foreign languages. Our curriculum is designed to foster a love for learning, develop critical thinking skills, and encourage creativity and innovation.

Introducing the NEAT Experience: Enhancing our Curriculum

We are excited to share that Whitehouse Primary School will soon benefit from the NEAT Experience, an enhanced curriculum designed by the NEAT Academy Trust. The NEAT Experience will bring additional opportunities and resources to our students, enriching their learning journey and providing them with a well-rounded education. We are confident that this collaboration with NEAT will further enhance our commitment to academic excellence and the holistic development of our students.

Parental Involvement and Support

We believe that parents play a crucial role in their child’s education, and we encourage your active involvement and support. We will provide regular updates on our curriculum, including detailed information on each subject and the specific learning outcomes we aim to achieve. We will also offer guidance on how you can support your child’s learning at home, ensuring a strong partnership between school and home.

We are excited about the possibilities that our new curriculum structure, aligned with the NEAT Academy Trust, brings to our school community. Together, we will inspire and empower every child to reach their full potential, equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and values they need for success in their educational journey and beyond.

If you have any questions or would like more information about our curriculum, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are here to support you and your child every step of the way.

Reading 

At Whitehouse Primary School we have a systematic approach to the teaching of reading and use the RWInc programme. From reception onwards, children are taught to recognise and write letters and make links between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) in order to read words. Common words that cannot be sounded out are taught alongside the programme, in order to ensure children know these words by sight. These are referred to as red words. Children are assessed every half-term and placed in small groups at the appropriate level, to ensure that they make the maximum amount of progress.  For more information on the Read Write Inc (RWInc) programme, please visit ruthmiskin.com 

All pupils in KS1 and KS2 read on a daily basis in a range of contexts; daily guided reading sessions, one-to-one reading sessions, Reading Pro sessions and the sharing of a class novel. We have a well-resourced library and children take quizzes on the books they read to check their understanding. Pupils are encouraged to take reading and library books home every evening and we ask families to listen to the child read at least three times a week.

Class Reader

Ethos                                                                

Story time at Whitehouse takes place daily and lasts for 15 minutes or more – this is particularly important as Reading to children is a statutory requirement of the National Curriculum. 

Each class has a class story book that has been specifically chosen to engage and excite the children. This may, in some cases, be the one chosen for the book curriculum for their English lessons.  

Some benefits of reading to children: 

• • Improved imagination 
  • Increased vocabulary 
  • Greater listening skills 
  • Enjoyment of books 
  • Experience of other places, times and cultures 
  • Moral issues 
  • Improved writing 
  • Internalising narrative patterns 
  • Hearing good models of spoken English

Reading for Pleasure (RfP)

At Whitehouse we strive to develop a rich Reading for Pleasure atmosphere. We have worked hard to develop an ethos and an environment that excites, enthuses, inspires and values.

We aim to achieve a rich RfP atmosphere by providing:

• • High quality texts with depth and interest in story, character, illustration, vocabulary, structure and subject matter
  • A read aloud programme
  • Teachers who are knowledgeable about children’s literature
  • Creating a community of readers with opportunities to share responses and opinions
  • Planning for talking about books and stories, providing structures within which to do this
  • Understanding the importance of illustration in reading both in terms of creating a text and responding to a text
  • Using drama and role-play to help children to understand and access texts
  • Working with authors and author/illustrators to understand the process of creating books
  • Using literature beyond the literacy lesson – cross-curricular planning with quality literature as the starting point
    In EY and KS1 children take home a RfP suitcase on a weekly basis. Parents and children are encouraged to snuggle up and share a story together along with a hot chocolate and some cookies. Many parents share these experiences via photographs on Seesaw.

Writing 

The development of writing skills is a key priority for the school. All classes follow Pie Corbett’s ‘Talk4Write’ ethos as the primary approach to writing.  Literacy and Language covers a variety of reading and writing skills using exciting and engaging texts as a starting point. Within these lessons pupils are taught to recognise the features of different texts and practise the relevant skills. We assess writing at the end of each unit of work, through Hot Task writing and children are given the opportunity to evaluate their own progress and identify areas for development.     

For more information on the Talk4Write programme please visit talk4writing.co.uk 

Writing skills are further developed through cross-curricular writing across the curriculum. Children are expected to transfer skills learnt in English to other subject areas. 

Handwriting

We take pride in the presentation of our work at Whitehouse and children are taught to develop their handwriting skills through the use ‘Penpals’, a handwriting scheme, to ensure there is a consistent approach throughout the school.

Phonics

Expectations of progress   

 Our goal is for children to:  

1. Work out unfamiliar words quickly – including new vocabulary and names.  
2. Read familiar words speedily – that is, words they have been taught.  
3. Read texts – including the words they have been taught – fluently.  

Please note: these are the expectations for the lowest 20% of children. Other children should be well in advance of this.  

All children should achieve these expectations, if they have followed the programme from Reception.

Speaking and Listening

The development of speaking and listening skills is essential to learning across the curriculum. Consequently, opportunities for paired and group discussions, focused speaking activities and drama-based tasks are built into most lessons.  

Grammar

Grammar is now assessed at the end of Key Stage 2 with a formal SATs paper and is an important part of English at Whitehouse. It is taught daily and children have the opportunity to practise their skills through both written and oral activities. 

Useful websites

National Curriculum 

Further information on the statutory tuition of English. 

RWInc Phonics programme – www.ruthmiskin.com

Read Write Inc (RWInc) – Learning to read through phonics scheme – Learning to read through phonics

PSHE