Curriculum

Curriculum Intent:

Our curriculum is driven by the need to create a love for learning. At Myddle CE Primary School, we offer a rich and vibrant curriculum which is ambitious for all learners. Through our curriculum, we develop the essential knowledge, skills and understanding which are the building blocks for later life.

Our curriculum encompasses not only the formal requirements of the National Curriculum, but goes beyond the experiences of the classroom to ensure that our children are exposed to the richest and most varied opportunities that we can provide.

Our aim is to enrich every child’s school experience by creating an environment where they are encouraged to succeed and be the best they can be. This ethos, along with the exploration of new skills and experiences, helps to produce the Myddle Magic – a set of values which underpin everything we do. The curriculum is further enhanced by our commitment to Christian Values (including British Values) and, through this, we allow pupils to develop a lifelong love of learning.

Essential Characteristics

At our schools we want the children to become ‘Experts’ and develop a mastery approach. We want children to understand the life-long skills that give all the curriculum areas relevance to real life and future career opportunities.
We want children at our schools to develop:
• An extensive base of knowledge and vocabulary.
• A mastery of the skills within each subject and apply them across the curriculum
• Fluency in enquiry and the ability to apply questioning skills and use effective analytical and presentational techniques.
• The ability to reach clear conclusions and develop a reasoned argument to explain findings.
• Significant levels of originality, imagination or creativity as shown in interpretations and representations of the subject matter.
• A passion for and commitment to the subjects taught, and a real sense of curiosity to find out about the world and the subjects covered.
• The ability to express well-balanced opinions, rooted in very good knowledge and understanding about the issues and evidence available.

At the centre of our curriculum is our Core Long Term Curriculum Plan which outlines our intentions for each subject in each year group. From this we create an annual overview for each class, each academic year. As a small school, our class structure changes frequently, so this model allows us to be flexible with our curriculum and adapt it to suit the year groups in each class. Planning in this way allows us as a school to track the coverage for each cohort to ensure the the full content of our curriculum is covered during a cohorts’ journey through the school.

All classes benefit from the additional support provided by full time teaching assistants. As well as their own class teacher, children have specialist teachers for some lessons regularly eg. music and sport.

Throughout the year, we also benefit from working with our feeder secondary school and children enjoy Language days, science workshops, art lessons, ICT lessons and use of the library amongst other things.

The curriculum will always be delivered within the context of Christian values, in accordance with the school’s vision. We aim to provide an atmosphere, inside and out, which offers the possibility of stimulation and enrichment to all who work within it. Our curriculum meets the requirements of the National Curriculum as well as developing awareness of personal and social understanding, moral and cultural understanding, health, the environment and the industrial world. We often work on whole school themes providing exciting and relevant experiences to bring learning to life. Teachers will use whole-class, group or individual teaching as they consider appropriate.

As a school, we aim to offer a curriculum which takes into account:

• Our locality in rural Shropshire
• The differing needs of our children

With this in mind, we have recruited additional experts to develop this approach. Our own teachers observe these experts, therefore developing and enriching their own skills.

Our curriculum is enhance by:

• Shropshire Music service – whole class instrument tuition; classroom music; school ensembles.
• The Wright Stuff – whole class PE lessons, lunchtime and afterschool clubs.
• Spanish teaching – One of our fully qualified teaching staff speaks fluent Spanish and has responsibility for planning lessons and leading MFL across both schools.
• Forest School – We work in partnership with the Woodland Trust.

Find out more about each curriculum subject by visiting the individual subject pages. Our Curriculum Policy provides more detail on our offer and philosophy, some of which is detailed below:

Our Unique Offer

The Myddle Magic – Our core values of Respect, Responsibility, Perseverance, Kindness and Forgiveness permeate through our school and it is these values that create what we call ‘The Myddle Magic’.

St Peter’s Church, Myddle – We are fortunate enough to be a very short walk from the church, so use this every Thursday for our collective worship. The reverend leads a short service linked to our values. These regular visits have helped to create the ‘Myddle Magic’ which we are proud of; the children show respect, co-operation, support and generosity. The Reverend comes into school regularly alongside this and offers support with RE and to the leadership team in his role as governor. The children work with the wider church community, taking part in events and celebrations at the church wherever possible.

Forest School – Forest school lessons are undertaken by all children from nursery to year 6 at different times of the school year and are dependent on curriculum topics. We have a well maintained forest area as well as extensive school grounds which are utilised to good effect to ensure the children can develop their self-belief, confidence, learning capacity, enthusiasm, communication and problem-solving skills and emotional well-being. It is used as a vehicle to stimulate science, geography, Understanding the World (EYFS), as well as many aspects of PSHE and SMSC.

Whole school themes – The whole school works on a termly theme, usually based on an aspect of history or geography. There is a progression in knowledge and skills for each class which are planned and tracked by individual class teachers. The shared theme encourages collaboration, parental support and involvement and enhanced engagement from the children.

Transition – We have our own on-site nursery, who work together with our Reception children. The staff work across the nursery and main school, making transition from EYFS to key stage 1 very smooth. We make regular visits throughout the year to our feeder secondary school, to support and extend our curriculum. We attend science, maths, PE and MFL days. Children from year 2-6 take part in these activities. We invite the year 7 staff to our school to support and observe in year 6 and attend moderation meetings.

End of Year Expectations:

End of year expectations – Reception

End of year expectations – Year 1

End of year expectations – Year 2

End of year expectations – Year 3

End of year expectations – Year 4

End of year expectations – Year 5

End of year expectations – Year 6