At The Spire Federation (East Wold and North Cockerington CE Primary Schools) we believe our curriculum should inspire, excite, motivate and challenge our children to develop a love of learning, both within and outside the classroom. We encourage children to learn new skills whilst giving them the opportunity to build upon, develop and apply what they already know in a range of different contexts.

We are passionate about ensuring our approach allows children to engage with their learning at a deep level; giving them plenty of opportunity to think about their learning, whilst monitoring and evaluating their own development.

We follow the National Curriculum for England, which forms the basis of all our planning.

Cornerstones Curriculum 22

We have adopted the Cornerstones Curriculum 22 which ensures that our curriculum is fully sequenced and connected. Our projects ensure that children build and sequence their knowledge as they go through school. Our Cornerstones Curriculum 22 covers science, history, geography, art & design and design & technology. Each year we cover three main projects per class and 'mini projects'. 

More details can be found at:

Cornerstones Curriculum 2022

The mixed age plans that we have tailored for our school are available at: 

Cornerstones Curriculum 22 Mixed Age Plan

 Maths

Our approach to Maths has been driven by ensuring the curriculum is fulfilled and by research from the NCETM and the White Rose Maths Hub. We endeavour to make our maths teaching dynamic and exciting, linked to problem solving and the application of knowledge, skills and understanding to a wide range of contexts and across all subjects. 

We want all pupils to enjoy learning and exploring mathematics, and become confident mathematicians, through a carefully structured mastery approach to the subject.

We follow the Statutory Framework for the EYFS and National Curriculum to teach mathematics. This is delivered using Power Maths and White Rose throughout EYFS, KS1 and KS2.

English

 

Phonics at North Cockerington

 

 

Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics complete literacy programme which helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling.  The programme is designed for children aged 4-7. However, at East Wold we will continue teaching RWI to children beyond the age of 7 if they still need support in their reading.

Reading

The children:

• - learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letters/letter groups using simple picture prompts – see below

• - learn to read words using Fred talk and sound blending

• - read from a range of storybooks and non-fictions books matched to their phonic knowledge

• - work well with partners

• - develop comprehension skills in stories by answering 'Find It' and 'Prove It' discussion questions

Writing

The children:

• - learn to write and form the letters/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds with the help of fun phrases

• - learn to write words by using Fred Talk

• - learn to build sentences by practising sentences out loud before they write 

 

Talking

The children work in pairs so that they:

• - answer every question

• - practise every activity with their partner

• - take turns in talking and reading to each other

• - develop ambitious vocabulary

Fred Talk

We use pure sounds (‘m’ not’ muh’,’s’ not ‘suh’, etc.) so that your child will be able to blend the sounds into words more easily.

At school we use a puppet called Fred who is an expert on sounding out words! we call it, ‘Fred Talk’. E.g. m-o-p, c-a-t, m-a-n, sh-o-p, b-l-a-ck.

The following video is an example of blending sounds with Fred. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEzfpod5w_Q

The children are taught the sounds in 3 sets.

Step 1:

Set 1 Sounds are taught in the following order together with rhymes to help children form the letters correctly and instantly recognise sounds ready for blending. 

 

Set 1
Sound	Rhyme
m	Down Maisie then over the two mountains. Maisie, mountain, mountain.
a	Round the apple, down the leaf.
s	Slide around the snake
d	Round the dinosaur's back, up his neck and down to his feet.
t	Down the tower, across the tower,
i	Down the insect's body, dot for the head.
n	Down Nobby and over the net.
p	Down the plait, up and over the pirates face.
g	Round the girls face, down her hair and give her a curl
o	All around the orange
c	Curl around the caterpillar
k	Down the kangaroos body, tail and leg
u	Down and under the umbrella, up to the top and down to the puddle
b	Down the laces, over the toe and touch the heel
f	Down the stem and draw the leaves
e	Slice into the egg, go over the top, then under the egg
l	Down the long leg
h	Down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back
sh	Slither down the snake, then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back
r	Down the robot's back, then up and curl
j	Down his body, curl and dot
v	Down a wing, up a wing
y	Down a horn, up a horn and under the yak's head.
w	Down, up, down, up the worm.
th	Down the tower, across the tower, then down the horse’s head to the hooves and over his back
z	Zig-zag-zig, down the zip.
ch	Curl around the caterpillar, , then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back
qu	Round the queen’s head, up to her crown, down her hair and curl
x	Cross down the arm and leg and cross the other way
ng	A thing on a string
nk	I think I stink

Please do not use letter names at this early stage.

Step 2:

The children are then taught Set 2 Sounds - the long vowels. When they are very confident with all of set 1 and 2 they are taught Set 3 Sounds. 

 

Long  vowel sound	Set 2 Speed Sound cards Teach these first	Set 3 Speed Sound cards
ay	ay: may I play	a-e: make a cake	ai: snail in the rain
ee	ee: what can you see	ea: cup of tea	e: he me we she be
igh	igh: fly high	i-e: nice smile
ow	ow: blow the snow	o-e: phone home	ao: goat in a boat
oo	oo: poo at the zoo	u-e: huge brute	ew: chew the stew
oo	oo: look at a book
ar	ar: start the car
or	or: shut the door	aw: yawn at dawn
air	air: that’s not fair	are: share and care
ir	ir: whirl and twirl	ur: nurse for a purse	er: a better letter
ou	ou: shout it out	ow: brown cow
oy	oy: toy for a boy	oi: spoil the boy

 

Step 3:

Within all the books children will have red and green words to learn to help them to become speedy readers. Red words are words that are not easily decodable and challenge words to extend children’s vocabulary. Green words are linked to the sounds they have been learning and are easily decodable.

Dots and dashes represent the sound each letter makes.

During the RWI session children will read the book three times and at each new reading they will have plenty of opportunities to practise using their developing comprehension skills. You may have heard your child talking about ‘hold, edit or build a sentence’.

Hold a sentence is an activity that encourages children to remember a whole sentence while focusing on spelling and punctuation.

Build a sentence is to give children the opportunity to create their own sentence that shows the meaning of a word and edit a sentence allows the children to critique a sentence using their knowledge of spelling, punctuation and grammar. Children complete a longer piece of independent writing, which gives them the opportunity to show off their creativity and to practise their spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Order of Story books: Children will hopefully follow the order listed below. The expectation is that all children will leave Year One as confident speedy readers, ready to take on the challenges of Year Two. However, some children may need extra support and your teacher will talk to you about this. 

Sound and Lilac Books

Ditty Sheets

Red Ditty Books

Green Books

Purple Books

Pink Books

Orange Books

Yellow Books

Blue Books

Grey Books

 

All children who are accessing RWI Phonics will receive two reading books. One reading book that matches their book level and the sounds that they are learning - we call  this a ‘I can' book as children can read this themselves. They are also able to pick and change a ‘choosing’ second book as often as they like. This is about reading for pleasure and they may not have the skills to read this independently, so it is  to share at home. Children will also have access to Oxford Owl where they can access ebooks from home. 

1:1 Tutoring

At East Wold we believe that every child can read and work to make this happen. Therefore we have a 1:1 tutoring scheme in place to help those children who find Phonics tricky. These are daily 5-10 minute sessions to help children keep up rather than catch up. 

To learn more about Read Write Inc please visit the parents page on the Ruth Muskin website.

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/parents/

English

For those children who have completed Read, Write Inc, we use Literacy Tree for our teaching of English. Literacy Tree is used across the UK and globally and is an award-winning educational platform. All of the Literacy Tree resources use high-quality children’s books and for writing, we follow their Teach Through a Text approach to ensure there is consistency throughout the school.

It also supports to create high levels of engagement as it immerses children in the text whilst covering the objectives fully in the curriculum. The text choices are an important part of this as well - many link to aspects of History and/or encourage deep discussions. We pride ourselves on our diverse choices.

 

 

RE                               

Our planning for RE draws upon the  Lincolnshire Agreed Syllabus for RE and Understanding Christianity.  In addition to this, as a Church school, Christian values are embedded throughout school life.

Spanish                           

Children in KS2 study Spanish at our school. We use the Language Angels scheme which provides interactive learning materials. 

PE

We recognise the importance of PE.  We follow the GetSet4PE in PE programme. In addition to this, school swimming sessions take place during the year. We promote swimming badges and aim for all children to be able to swim at least 25m by the time they leave us. We also have coaches that visit us and a sports coach that organises lunchtime and after school activities.

PSHE

Personal Social Health Education (PSHE) is an important part of school life. We aim safeguard pupils, support their spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development and prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life. In PSHE we cover health and wellbeing, relationships, living in the wider world and British Values. We follow the LCP planning framework and Relationships sex education (RSE) and health education is integral to our PSHE curriculum. 

Computing

We have developed a long term plan that builds on prior skills and knowledge. We use the Teach Computing Curriculum and Purple Mash to ensure all our pupils are supported and challenged in computing. 

Music 

We follow Music Express for our music curriculum provision. We also benefit from having specialist teacher visit us. 

In addition, we have a peripatetic music teacher that visits us to teach guitar lessons on a chargable basis. 

EYFS

Our Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Curriculum is designed to support children’s learning across all areas, through the provision of both planned and child-initiated purposeful activities and experiences within an environment of high quality resources and interactions.  We link with our Cornerstones curriculum and recognise each child as an individual with their own interests, motivations and needs which adds to our provision.

	Wren Class Curriculum Enrichment	[pdf 49KB]
	EYFS CIII	[pdf 71KB]