Curriculum | Southfield Primary

Southfield Curriculum Statement

Intent

Our Curriculum is underpinned by oracy and is relevant to the Armthorpe community but develops a deep and interconnected understanding of wider global issues and social injustice. It is a knowledge based curriculum which is underpinned by the Southfield vision.

At the heart :

Depth of learning
Powerful knowledge which is structured and purposeful , specialised,systematic and remembered not encountered.
Reading prioritised to enable full access to the curriculum
Rich curriculum - meaningful and relevant to contemporary children
Bold and thought provoking
Global issues
Starts with knowledge but skills then build progressively across the year and group and linear from Y1-6
Focus on subject disciplines
Clear purpose for assessment
Local context
Using the past to inform modern thinking
Social justice requires that education empowers everyone to be well informed and take control of their lives. Liberated, confident children who think critically and can be democaratic.

Implementation:

Our curriculum is designed over time to maximise the likelihood that children will develop understanding, remember and connect the steps they have been taught. We aim to introduce them to the best that has been thought and said. An ambitious curriculum for all, with high challenge and expectations but in a climate where children feel safe to contribute and, make mistakes and learn metacognitively.

At the heart:

Focus on the content knowledge and is unerpitted by structure and sequence, not knowledge in isolation
Knowledge and skills systematically revisited
Vocabulary explicit
Talk at the heart – balance of teacher imparting knowledge and plenty of opportunity for children to have interactive dialogue and elaborate on ideas and thinking
Breadth of literature
Relate new knowledge to what we already know
Clear purpose for assessment
Clear curriculum leadership
Learning is connected, relevant and purposeful

Impact:

We want our curriculum to make a difference. To empower children with sequential knowledge that is cumulative and sticks with them over time. We aim for it to provide solid foundations for all future learning and allow children to commit rich learning experiences to long term memory. To develop questioning, articulate citizens who are able to take control of their lives and contribute well to society.

At the heart:

Check progress over time
Systematic
Is it powerful learning? Is it being transferred?
Understanding and knowledge directly linked
Is knowledge sticky? Is it being retained and built upon?
Progress- knowing more and remembering more
Equal access for all and the attainment gap closing
Why this? Why now?

Phonics Curriculum Statement

Intent

We passionately believe that teaching children to read independently and as quickly as possible is one of the core purposes of a primary school. This fundamental skill holds the keys to being able to access the rest of the curriculum and thus has a huge impact on children’s future life chances. We believe that reading is the key to all learning and as such we go beyond the rigorous teaching of phonics to embed strategies and skills across the entire curriculum. Phonics provides children with a solid reading foundation and this approach is accompanied by rich quality texts and stimulating reading environments. We work in partnership with parents/carers to ensure that phonics is taught and embedded at both home and school. Children are given the appropriate books to take home and practice and parents/carers are offered opportunities to engage in phonics sessions and are well informed to enable them to have a thorough understanding of our approach to early reading.

We use a synthetic phonics programme called ‘Read Write Inc’ produced by Ruth Miskin. Read Write Inc is a method of learning letter sounds and blending them together to read and write words. As part of this, children have daily phonics sessions in small fluid groups matched accurately to the child’s ability. They participate in speaking, listening and spelling activities that are matched to their developing needs. The teachers draw upon observations and continuous assessment to ensure children are stretched and challenged and to identify children who may need additional support. Children work through the different phases, learning and developing their phonic sounds and knowledge. Our fundamental aim is for children to achieve well through rigorous assessment, fluid groupings and 1:1 interventions. Children need to learn key phonic knowledge and develop skills in segmenting and blending to complete the phonics screening check at the end of Year 1.

We aim to create a true reading culture and a genuine love of reading for our children. Valuing and encouraging pupils to read for enjoyment, we recognise that this starts with the foundations of acquiring letter sounds, segmenting and blending skills – enjoying success and gaining confidence from a highly positive experience.

Substantive knowledge

In reading, substantive knowledge is the ability to decode and sight-read words. To begin with, they will need a secure knowledge of phonics. This means that they will be able to hear phonemes, identify digraphs and trigraphs and match the sounds to individual letters and groups of letters (phoneme-grapheme correspondences). They will then apply these skills to blend the sounds of letters together to decode unfamiliar or unknown words. They will also need to sight read a range of tricky words to enable them to become fluent readers. As they progress in their reading, children will begin to automatically recognise words, reading with automaticity and pace.

Disciplinary knowledge

Once children are fluent readers, who can understand what they have read, they begin to develop their disciplinary knowledge in reading. This also applies to writing: once children can confidently structure sentences using accurate punctuation and grammar, they are able to develop disciplinary knowledge in writing. In reading, this involves the ability to interpret different texts, drawing upon knowledge of language and literary conventions. It involves the skills of supporting an opinion, based upon evidence within the text, and comparing and contrasting books from a range of genres, written by a variety of authors. Children will develop the skill of comparing themes, drawing upon extracts from the text to back up arguments and discussions and evaluating the intentions of the author, and expressing personal preferences.

Cultural Capital

The range of texts and topics that are presented in the RWI books encourages pupils to experience the ‘awe and wonder’ of the world by developing their curiosity, tapping into their potential, widening their horizons and building the essential knowledge so that they could aspire and achieve bright futures as educated citizens from whatever their starting points.

Key Concepts
Read Write Inc. (RWI) is a structured phonics programme designed to help children learn to read and write effectively. Here are some key concepts in the RWI approach:
1. Speed Sounds:
• Set 1: Basic sounds represented by single letters (e.g., m, a, s) and some digraphs (e.g., sh, th).
• Set 2: More complex sounds, including additional digraphs (e.g., ay, ee).
• Set 3: Advanced sounds, often involving trigraphs and more complex digraphs (e.g., air, ure).
2. Blending:
• Children learn to blend individual sounds together to form words. This is crucial for reading fluency.
3. Segmenting:
• The reverse of blending, where children break down words into their constituent sounds to aid in spelling.
4. Fred Talk:
• A technique where children sound out words phonemically before blending them together to read the whole word.
5. Storybooks:
• RWI uses decodable storybooks that match the phonics level of the children, ensuring they practise reading with words they can decode.
6. Writing:
• Alongside reading, children learn to form letters correctly and write words and sentences using the sounds they have learnt.
7. Assessment and Grouping:
• Regular assessments ensure children are grouped according to their reading level, allowing for targeted instruction.