School Curriculum
Curriculum Overviews
Design and Technology
Home Learning
Welcome to our home learning section on our school website. Here you will find links to any online learning platforms that we use. All of our children will have their logins for each of the websites in their reading diaries.
Click to view our remote learning information here
 |
 |
 |
Google Classroom |
Times Table Rockstars |
Numbots |
Modern Foreign Languages
PSHE
Click To View Our Subject Overview PSHE
What is PSHE Education?
PSHE Education (Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education) is a planned programme of learning through which children and young people acquire the knowledge, understanding and skills they need to successfully manage their lives – now and in the future. As part of a whole-school approach, PSHE Education develops the qualities and attributes pupils need to thrive as individuals, family members and members of society.
What do schools have to teach in PSHE Education?
According to the National Curriculum, every school needs to have a broad and balanced curriculum that:
• promotes the spiritual, moral, social, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school;
• prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life;
• promotes British values.
From September 2020, primary schools in England also need to teach Relationships and Health Education as compulsory subjects and the Department for Education strongly recommends this should also include age-appropriate Sex Education.
Schools also have statutory responsibilities to safeguard their pupils (Keeping Children Safe in Education, DfE, 2019) and to uphold the Equality Act (2010).
The Jigsaw Programme supports all.
Jigsaw is designed as a whole school approach, with all year groups working on the same theme (Puzzle) at the same time. This enables each Puzzle to start with an introductory assembly, generating a whole school focus for adults and children alike. Jigsaw aims to help children know and value who they really are and how they relate to other people in this ever-changing world.
There are Puzzles (half-term units of work) each with Pieces (lessons). Every year group studies the same Puzzle at the same time (sequentially ordered from September to July), allowing for whole school themes and the end of Puzzle product, for example, a display or assembly to be shared and celebrated by the whole school. Each year group teaches six lessons per half term and all lessons are delivered in an age- and stage- appropriate way so that they meet children’s needs.
This is Our Jigsaw Charter. We use our Charter in all of our Jigsaw lessons, to ensure that each child has a voice and the right to give their own opinions as well as the chance to listen to others.
The Puzzles and what children learn
Being Me In My World covers a wide range of topics, including a sense of belonging, welcoming others and being part of a school community, a wider community and a global community; it also looks at children’s rights and responsibilities, working and socialising with others, and pupil voice.
Celebrating Difference focuses on similarities and differences and teaches about diversity, such as disability, racism, power, friendships, and conflict; children learn to accept everyone’s right to ‘difference’, and most year groups explore the concept of ‘normal’ and bullying – what it is and what it isn’t.
Dreams and Goals aims to help children think about their hopes and dreams, their goals for success, what personal strengths are, and how to overcome challenges,
via team work skills and tasks.
Healthy Me covers two main areas of health: Emotional health (relaxation, being safe, friendships, mental health skills, body image, relationships with food, managing stress) and Physical health (eating a balanced diet, physical activity, rest and relaxation, keeping clean, drugs and alcohol, being safe, first aid) in order for children to learn that health is a very broad topic.
Relationships has a wide focus, looking at diverse topics such as families, friendships, pets and animals, and love and loss. A vital part of this Puzzle is about safeguarding and keeping children safe; this links to Internet safety and social networking, as well as attraction and assertiveness; children learn how to deal with conflict, their own strengths and self-esteem. They have the chance to explore roles and responsibilities in families, and look at stereotypes.
Changing Me deals with change of many types, from growing from young to old, becoming a teenager, assertiveness, self-respect and safeguarding. Each year group thinks about looking ahead, moving year groups or the transition to a new school. This puzzle links with the Science curriculum when teaching children about life cycles and how our body changes.
Assessment in Jigsaw is both formative and summative. Within the lesson children are also able to identify areas for self-improvement. Teachers track the children’s attainment on ‘Target Tracker’ which informs future planning as well as identifying children who may need more support with emotional literacy or social skills development.
Reading
Click To View Our Subject Overview Reading
Click to Access Our Virtual Library of Teacher Stories Here
At Sowe Valley Primary School we believe that reading is an essential life skill and we are committed to enabling our children to become lifelong readers.
At the heart of our strategy is our drive to foster a love of reading, enriching children’s learning through carefully designed teaching activities that utilise imaginative stories and thought provoking texts. Reading is a skill that enables children to develop their learning across the wider curriculum and lays the foundations for success in their future.
We have high expectations of all children and encourage parents to support our vision by reading at home daily with their children.
Our reading skills lessons take place every day in every year group across the school for 30 minutes. Within these sessions our teachers model reading strategies during shared whole class reading sessions. These involve high quality, age-appropriate texts which are carefully selected by our staff. These are read to or with the children and provide an opportunity to teach children specific reading skills to widen their vocabulary and develop their levels of comprehension, as outlined in the National Curriculum. Questions are planned by teachers in advance to help children access a range of skills to help them to develop a greater understanding of a range of reading materials including fiction, non-fiction and poetry materials.
In our reading lessons, we use reading VIPERS (based on materials from ‘The Literacy Shed’) to help support our pupils to understand what a good reader looks like and how to approach answering reading questions. VIPERS is an acronym used by teachers at Sowe Valley to aid the recall of the 6 reading domains as part of the UK’s reading curriculum. They are the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts.
Vocabulary Inference Prediction Explanation Retrieval Sequence or Summarise
All children work on VIPERS during class reading whether this is reading as a class, in a small group or one to one with an adult. We encourage children to orally talk through their answers before formally recording their answers. Children do this in a variety of ways such as discussing the answer first with their peers and/or an adult and then writing their best answer.
Click to View Vipers Question Stems Here
It would be excellent if, as parents, you could also refer to these VIPERS regularly when you are listening to your child read at home. VIPERS questions can be applied to any text that a child is reading as well as with pictures, picture books and films! When any adult is listening to a child read, all they have to do is think of questions about the book, picture or film that cover some of the VIPERS and there are some great examples below of how you can create your own questions using the following question openers. If you have any questions or are struggling with this, please contact your child’s class teacher and they will provide some additional support materials to use at home.
At Sowe Valley Primary School, we encourage a reading for pleasure ethos through daily reading sessions, class story time, outdoor reading, reading challenges, author visits and reading events, such as World Book Day. Children also have independent access to a wide variety of high-quality texts in their classroom reading areas and school reading hubs which can be accessed on weekly ‘zone day’. It is these tools and opportunities that we believe give our children the necessary skills to become thoughtful and confident readers for life.
Our staff nurture a love of books by introducing books with enthusiasm and enjoyment, promoting a sense of wonder and expectation as the book is explored. Our staff use high quality texts in all aspects of their teaching across the curriculum and provide opportunities that extend and enrich the children’s learning in their class. When we read for pleasure, our children can choose the books they wish to read and enjoy.
Children’s love of reading is a high priority at Sowe Valley. We aspire for our pupils to read and enjoy a wide range of texts. Therefore, each year group is provided with a ‘top 50 challenge’ where they are encouraged to read as many books from the recommended list during their time in that year group. Pupils will bring a Top 50 book home alongside their reading book to enjoy at home – these are changed at pupils request and may take longer to read than their reading book. Please feel free to enjoy the book for aslong as you require before returning it to change. The top 50 books are selected and pitched at the reading age typically expected of pupils within that year group and, on some occassions, these may challenge your child beyond their reading ability. Our provision of books aim to promote a love of books so it may be that you choose to read to, read with or listen to your child reading the story.
Speaking And Listening
Theme and Science
Writing
Click To View Our Subject Overview Writing
Writing in EYFS
From the moment children enter our Reception classroom they are immersed in a language rich environment, with stories at the core of their learning and the Early Years Curriculum. Pupil articulation and oracy is valued with a high priority and children are given a range of opportunities to engage in back-and-fourth interactions, conversations, story-telling and role play. The supportive environment provides children with the appropriate scaffolds and models to help them develop confidence in expressing themselves whilst adding to their vocabulary.
Alongside opportunities to strengthen their oracy, children participate in daily phonics teaching where, over time, they begin to recognise phoneme-grapheme correspondence. Once the children can segment sounds, they begin to label the pictures they see with words and soon they use these words to form sentences. The children are supported to apply their phonic learning to their writing, follow a simple sentence structure and to use basic punctuation during their Reception year.
Writing across KS1 and Ks2
Writing at Sowe Valley is taught using a model of practice taken from ‘The Write Stuff’. The research of Jane Considine (The Write Stuff) focuses on a love of story, enrichment and language. Children are immersed in a key text, revealing plot points one at a time through the ‘slow reveal’ to maintain the excitement of revealing the story. This story forms the basis of the wider project and curriculum enrichment. Not only do the children hear stories, they soon become authors themselves. As the children progress through Year 1 they begin ‘Sentence Stacking’; connecting ideas about characters to create stories. Combining their love of reading with a love of writing as they become story writers.
Children follow a method called ‘sentence stacking’. Sentence stacking refers to the fact that sentences are grouped together chronologically or organisationally to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can apply immediately to their writing. Children learn to sentence stack, focusing on the style of the author and impact of words and sentences. Within a writing lesson, children use writing lenses to help them focus on specific skills. These lenses relate to the ‘Three Zones of Writing’: The FANTASTICs (Ideas), The GRAMMARISTICs (Tools), and The BOOMTASTICs (Techniques) support their learning, precision and writing.
The FANTASTICs system, which is also used in the teaching of reading, allows children to identify the nine elements that all text types are comprised of. When pupils are familiar with these nine elements, they are able to ensure that they are incorporated into their writing. The FANTASTICs help children to sharpen their understanding of their own and others’ writing by encouraging them to be observant and reflective.
The 9 GRAMMARISTICs cover national curriculum requirements, capturing the broad spectrum of key grammar knowledge. Discrete gammar lessons are also taught to ensure specific grammar knowledge is taught and revisited. A grammar routeway is used to ensure consistency and progression through school.
The BOOMTASTICs capture the ten powerful ways to add drama and poetic devices to writing. They help children structure their work, teaching them to showcase their writing voice, demonstrate originality and to take risks in a bid to capture the truth of a situation.
Once children have followed their ‘central character’ through the story, they have the opportunity to plan and write independently using their previous learning to shape their creative stories. Children at Sowe Valley are encouraged to see writing as a journey; re-drafting and editing are used before writing is published. Writing extends across the curriculum with children being given opportunities to write for a range of different purposes outside of the writing lesson.
View Glossary To Support Parents
