Our Curriculum

At Clifton CE Primary we offer a well planned, broad and balanced curriculum. Below you will find more information in our curriculum plans. If you require any additional curriculum information, please ask your child's class teacher in the first instance. 

Mathematics

Maths supports children to make sense of the world around them by developing their curiosity to calculate, reason and solve problems.

Our aim is for all of our children to understand how mathematics is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.

At Clifton CE Primary, Maths is taught as a stand-alone subject as well as woven through other subjects as an essential component of other curriculum areas. We follow the White Rose scheme of learning and supporting materials, as the overviews are designed to support a mastery approach to teaching and learning, in addition to supporting the aims and objectives of the National Curriculum.

English

At Clifton CE Primary School English is taught as a stand alone subject as well as being woven through all of our subjects as an essential component of all curriculum areas. We aspire to provide a wealth of experiences to develop the ability to communicate effectively in speech and writing and to listen with understanding. Our aim is for all of our children to become confident, enthusiastic and responsive readers, writers and speakers.

Writing

The skills and mechanics of writing are taught explicitly throughout the week in all of our classrooms.  Our writing is themed in many ways; sometimes an inspiring text is used, other times it may be linked to our topic work, for example; writing a letter as a WWII evacuee or creating a newspaper report of the Great Fire of London.  We believe that writing should be an enjoyable experience and that the children should feel that they are writing for a purpose.  SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) objectives for each year group are incorporated into our daily English lessons and taught either as explicit stand alone lessons or incorporated into our writing lessons.

To ensure coverage of the English National Curriculum objectives for each year group, we use a range of carefully selected resources including high quality and inspiring class texts, Wordsmith and The Literacy Shed.

Handwriting

Handwriting begins in Reception with basic letter formation and continues to evolve in Key Stage 1.  We teach a cursive handwriting style from year 1, teaching and developing the pre-cursive letters and then moving on to the Continuous Cursive handwriting in year 2.  We teach cursive handwriting in order to benefit children in the areas of both spelling and writing as Continuous Cursive presents a fluid style that is easy to learn and is neat and legible.

Reading and Phonics
Reading is something that we are very passionate about at Clifton CE Primary School.  We see it as a window of opportunity into so many different worlds. We encourage all children to read aloud to an adult and to share books at home regularly. 

We adopt the synthetic phonics approach using the Phonics Bug scheme, which is based on the 'Letters and Sounds' programme. We also use actions to support the children’s memory through Jolly Phonics. Synthetic phonics is the process of sounding out the individual sounds in an unknown word and then blending these sounds together in order to read the word.  The scheme teaches the sounds in an order which allows them to quickly begin to put sounds together to read words. For example, many words can be created from the letters SATPIN, whereas very few could be built using the initial letters of the alphabet ABCDE

In June each year, children in Year 1 children take part in the national phonics screening check. 

In Reception our reading books are linked to the phonic sounds taught to give children opportunities to fully decode their books.

In Key Stage 1 reading books link to the phonics children have learnt and provides children the opportunity to use the decoding and segmenting skills. Reading books are from a range of schemes including Oxford Reading Tree books. All books are banded by colour and children read books from the colour band assigned by their class teacher. Wherever possible children are given books that are at their phonic, reading and comprehension level.

From year 2 upwards we use Accelerated Reader (AR), which is a computer program that helps teachers manage and monitor children’s independent reading practice. Children join Accelerated Reader during Year 2, once they are ready and able to complete Star Reader quizzes independently.  All pupils pick books at their own levels and read them at their own pace. When finished, they take a short quiz on the computer.  Passing the quiz is an indication they have understood what has been read.

Spoken Language 

A high-quality education in English will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them.  All the skills of language are essential to participating fully as a member of society and therefore it is vital to ensure that teaching across the curriculum develops the oral literacy of our children.

Teachers should develop pupils’ spoken language, reading, writing and vocabulary as integral aspects of the teaching of every subject. English is both a subject in its own right and the medium for teaching; for pupils, understanding the language provides access to the whole curriculum. Fluency in the English language is an essential foundation for success in all subjects.

Other subjects

Other subjects are taught as set out in the National Curriculum 2014. See below for this year's curriculum plans.