Curriculum

CURRICULUM INTENT

At Bridlewood, our motto and three core values (Respect, Honesty and Responsibility), underpin the way we deliver the curriculum to our pupils. We are a small school embedded in our community, with close relationships with our parents and a place where we care for and nurture our children and each other. We recognise the importance of making links across subjects so that pupils will know and remember more of their learning and therefore offer a topic based approach to learning across the school. It is important that we continue to raise achievement in our core subjects and ensure we have a progression of knowledge, skills and understanding but we encourage breadth in our curriculum to ensure all pupils feel they are ‘good at something’ and therefore nurture talent in sport and in the arts as well as academic subjects. We also recognise the importance of health and well-being by ensuring our pupils all take part in a ‘daily run’ and encourage outdoor learning in our ‘woodland walk’. We celebrate pupils’ learning through vibrant displays and a rich learning environment and weekly celebration assembly. We want all our pupils to be 'secondary ready' and therefore aim for all our pupils to reach the 'expected standard' and be confident, independent and resilient learners by the time they leave Bridlewood.

CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION

At Bridlewood we follow the National Curriculum for England 2016 and use our chosen subject schemes of work for each year group based around a topic and related text. We also provide experiences which ‘bring the learning to life’ and make memories for the pupils through: trips, visitors, thematic weeks, productions, class assemblies, sports days and charity events.

Phonics & Reading

Since September 2021 we have followed the 'Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised' systematic synthetic phonics program to teach phonics in Reception and Year 1. The Phonics Screening Check is administered in June of Year 1 with a re-check in Year 2, if required. 

Because of the complex alphabetic code of English, pupils are explicitly taught the correspondence between letters and sounds (graphemes and phonemes), as well as blending the individual sounds together to read. Early reading and synthetic phonics is taught systematically to ensure all children learn to read words and simple sentences accurately.

Specific Reading skills: decoding, prosidy and comprehension  are taught each week through three Reading Practice Sessions.  Pupils take home the decodable reading book that has been shared in class the following week to continue practising at home. Pupils in Reception and Year 1 also take home a 'Reading for Pleasure' book for parents to share with the child.

Pupils in Year 2 and above, who are secure with phase 5 phonics, move onto the coloured reading scheme.  The school library is well stocked with both fiction and non fiction books for pupils to choose from when they have completed the book band colours and are ready to choose their own reading material. Pupils have a Reading Diary to keep a log of their reading and this is checked regularly by the class teacher. Parents (or older pupils) are asked to record when they have read at home in the Reading Diary.

Please see the Helping at Home section of the website for videos and resources to support your child with learning phonics at home.

CURRICULUM IMPACT

We use our KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to teacher assess whether pupils in each year group have achieved the ‘expected’ standard in each subject. To have reached this standard, pupils will have demonstrated they have achieved all the KPIs by the end of the year. Teacher assessment is supported by formal tests in core subjects, which provide additional evidence.

Leaders monitor the curriculum regularly, through lesson visits, book scrutiny and pupil voice, to ensure consistency in the teaching and learning across each subject across the school.  This information is reported to governors and summarised annually in our subject leader reports.

Assessment information in core subjects is collated and tracked and monitored through pupil progress meetings termly (x3 per year). All curriculum outcomes are reported to parents through parent consultation evenings in October and February and in pupils' annual reports in July.

Additional Information

If you require any further information about the school curriculum, please contact the class teacher or headteacher.

The school accessibility plan can be found on our policy page and further information on how we support pupils with additional needs can be found on our SEND page.