Curriculum

Our Curriculum

We are equipping our children for a world we don’t yet know, for jobs that don’t yet exist and for a globally competitive job market.  Whilst we aspire for our children to be literate and numerate and to strive for high academic attainment we also equip our children with a passion for finding things out, working collaboratively and for working towards the greater good.

“Aspire, Believe, Achieve”

At Coppice Primary School, learning is fuelled by our strapline and our desire for every child to have the opportunity to develop our Learning Values of “Understanding”, “Resilience”, “Motivation”, “Cooperation”, “Independence”, “Responsibility” and “Collaboration”.   

Intent

At Coppice Primary School we use the National Curriculum and our school context to design a learning offer that is interesting and varied with meaningful outcomes.  We want our children to come into school full of excitement and motivated to learn and so we make learning fun!  We support our children to learn the full range of the National Curriculum subjects whilst helping them to build connections across the subject areas, deepening their knowledge and extending their skills.

Learning happens everywhere, and at Coppice this is tangible! Children at Coppice don’t only learn in their classrooms, they learn in our amazing Forest School setting, in our Computing Hub, our Science Lab, our Art Studio, our Music Suite, our halls or our extensive grounds.  Wherever learning is taking place, our Coppice classes are full of lively discussion, debate and collaborative working opportunities. 

There is a focus on each child and a determination for each child’s personal needs to be met.  As such we support our children to take ownership of their learning and set personal goals and targets.  We also help them become critical friends who can support their peers through problem solving and group work. 

Our teachers are facilitators of great learning opportunities.  We ensure our curriculum is broad, balanced and enriched; grounded in educational research into best teaching practices and how children learn.  These act as a guide for consistency and progression in our curriculum and to ensure every child is challenged to make progress and that learning is being assessed regularly to best meet the needs of each individual. 

Coppice is a memorable place to begin a learning career.  We are committed to developing the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of each child.  We capture our children’s imaginations through our exciting range of trips, visitors and activities, extend their opportunities to learn in the wider society and support our children to become global citizens of the world.   

Anyone visiting Coppice Primary School leaves with a smile! Learning and enjoyment are palpable.  Our children strive to succeed, take risks and embrace the amazing opportunities Coppice has to offer. 

Implementation

We structure our curriculum to ensure that high quality learning is central to everything we do.  We love reading and have a focus on ensuring every child who spends their primary career at Coppice has the opportunity to read a wide range of wonderful books from a variety of highly regarded authors.  Equality of opportunity is paramount and our book choices and curriculum topics and themes try to give a broad and rich experience of lifestyles and choices.  We integrate the topics and themes with the requirements of the National Curriculum wherever meaningful connections can be made. 

Over the years we have developed comprehensive progression and skills documents, using the National Curriculum, for each subject area of the curriculum.  This enables teachers to ensure children remember more and make progress in their learning as they journey through their time at Coppice. 

Our Curriculum Map clearly documents the themes and projects that each year group will explore.  Teachers use the Curriculum Map and the progression and skills documents to carefully plan for each half term; preparing weekly timetables that show how individual subjects will be taught within the overarching theme.  All children’s needs are met by carefully differentiated planning and ongoing assessment opportunities.  Working in this way ensures that our curriculum is progressive and has rich coverage from Nursery through to Year 6. 

How We Approach Learning

Learning at Coppice is child centred, with a strong focus on Oracy.  We know that to truly understand something, you need to be able to explain it to others and so meaningful talk is expertly developed in all our classrooms with high expectations for talking in full sentences in Standard English.  Children are provided with opportunities to explore their learning and deepen their understanding through hands on experiences that help children to build his/her knowledge and skills.  At the start of a new theme or topic, children have a “Stunning Start” that hooks them in, excites them about the forthcoming learning and provides a useful assessment tool for the teachers.  Throughout the duration of the topic, teachers expertly question, probe and develop children’s understanding.  We understand that the brain is more likely to absorb details when we can place them within a wider context and we therefore punctuate the topic with many opportunities to build connections, encounter the same information in a variety of places and support children to articulate their understanding at every opportunity. 

Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education permeates through our curriculum.  We seek to ensure our children are well equipped Global Citizens where equality of opportunity, environmental issues and current affairs are a key part of our daily diet and helps our children to navigate the complexities of the world in which we live. 

We assess where each child is when s/he enters school at whatever key stage. We begin from that point and take the child through the curriculum at a pace appropriate to individual needs, so that each may be offered an equal opportunity to achieve their full potential.

We currently have two classes per year group.  Our classes are organised in mixed ability groups and usually according to age.  The children will normally stay in the same class for a year.  Most teaching throughout the school happens as a class, with teachers using time within each lesson to focus on smaller groups to ensure individual needs are met.  Phonics teaching across Key Stage 1 is taught in small cross phase groups and includes children from Reception from the spring term.  In Year 5 and Year 6 we set for English and Maths.  Where considered to be beneficial, provision is made for additional help to be given to individual chil­dren.

We are a self-evaluating school and as such spend a lot of time in classrooms exploring learning, talking with children and helping to build ideas. We are extremely proud of the specialist offer we have at Coppice employing experts in Music, PE, Computing, Art and Forest Schools.  Every child from Reception through to Year 6 has access to these experts enjoying an exceptional learning experience.  Subject Leaders and the school Senior Leadership Team regularly monitor the planning, delivery and organisation of learning across the school. Regular reviewing of topics, themes and schemes of work take place with teaching staff and amendments are made, as necessary, to the overall curriculum. 

Within classrooms ongoing assessment is continuously taking place as part of each teacher’s daily practice.  Within each lesson, teachers are exploring how to plan for the next lesson, based on the children’s learning on any given day.  This is known as formative assessment.  Teachers also use summative assessment to support their longer term planning.  This is usually at the end of a unit of work or a key stage and allows teachers and children to know how much of their learning they have consolidated and understood.  At the end of Reception, Year 2 and Year 6, children are assessed and their results are formally reported to parents.  There is also a phonics test in Year 1 and a Multiplication Check in Year 4.  Again, results are reported to parents.

We invite parents into school to discuss their child’s learning three times a year.  In the Autumn and Spring Terms this is an opportunity to meet with your child’s class teacher, look at their books and find out about both their attainment and their progress.  In the summer term this is an opportunity to discuss your child’s annual written report with their class teacher and to meet their child’s new teacher for the coming academic year. Should parents wish to meet with specialist or set teachers, they are welcomed to make appointments through the school office.  For parents with children in Key Stage 2, one of the parent meetings is timetabled to be 5 minutes longer than usual.  This is to allow your child to present their learning and their targets to you.  This forms a very important part of our learning philosophy that children should be reflective learners and able to articulate their next steps for learning. Children’s records are available throughout the year.  If you would like to see your child’s learning record outside of the scheduled parent meetings, please put your request in writing to the headteacher and this will be arranged.

Impact

Our curriculum has an ambition for high achievement of all pupils irrespective of background and starting points.  This achievement is represented in three key areas; Academic Standards, the demonstration of our Learning Values and in the demonstration of the Coppice Code.  We have high aspirations for every pupil and it is our aim that each child is equipped with the skills, knowledge and confidence to independently take the next step in their educational journey. 

Assessment at the end of each Phase

1. Foundation Stage.   At the end of Reception, based on classroom observations, a Foundation Stage profile will be completed for every child in line with statutory requirements. This helps teachers plan appropriately for each child’s next phase of learning.

b)  Key Stage 1.   At the end of Key Stage 1, children will be assessed as part of the Statutory Assessment Tests (S.A.T.S.) (summative). This will take place in their last term of Year 2, within their normal classroom environ­ment, and will consist of assessment by their own teacher and a varie­ty of tasks externally set, but implemented by their teacher. 

During the summer term, over a week specified by the Department for Education, children in Year 1 are given a phonics screening check to assess their progress in this aspect of reading. 

Parents are informed of their child’s results.

c)   In order to ensure progression in learning and the development of skills, data from end of Key Stage 1 assessments is used to plan each child’s work as they begin Key Stage 2 programmes of study.

d)  Key Stage 2.  At the end of Key Stage 2, following the timetable for a week specified by the Department of Education, children in Year 6 sit statutory national tests in English and Mathematics. Levels achieved by the children in the tests, together the teacher’s assessment across the subject for the year, are reported to parents.

If you have any questions regarding the curriculum we teach please contact the school directly.