Curriculum Provision 2023-24

Children Learning Together

‘A creative and vibrant curriculum which includes religious education (RE) contributes to the children’s achievements and spiritual development.’ SIAMS church inspection Oct 2016

Our vision is ‘Preparing, Sowing, Growing’ and we have applied that principle to our curriculum design.  We have carefully planned our curriculum so that children learn knowledge and skills which will prepare them for life in modern Britain. In 2014 we began a careful review of our curriculum, with consultation and input from parents, governors, staff and pupils resulting in a set of curriculum drivers.  We use the National Curriculum, these Curriculum Drivers and our Long Term themes to plan an engaging, knowledge-filled curriculum which will enable our children to excel.

Our intention for our curriculum

Our five drivers enable our school vision to be lived out: Exploring Opportunities (Visits and Visitors); Outdoor Education; Christian Values; Happiness and Well-being; Our Place in the World.  These drivers are planned for in each half term of learning and through them we intend that our children will enjoy a broad and balanced curriculum with lots of opportunities for personal development.  Each half term parents receive an updated curriculum grid so that they are aware of our school intention and how we are delivering a great education to their child/ren.  Through our rich curriculum, we are determined to: encourage pupils to think about the opportunities that lie ahead of them; teach them how to enjoy the great outdoors and be happy; show pupils what a wonderful world we live in; help them understand their place in the world as tolerant and caring citizens; and share with them the joy of education and lifelong learning as a path to fulfilling their dreams.

How do we implement our curriculum?

At Christ Church we believe that children learn best when knowledge is put into a context.  Our teachers plan a broad and balanced curriculum which provides lots of opportunities for cross curricular learning and time to apply skills and knowledge in a variety of contexts. We also ensure that all children have the opportunity to take part in a range of experiences across their school career, so that they have an understanding of the rich culture we live in. From performing to an audience to visiting museums, life in school is busy and fun.

We are continually reviewing our curriculum and asking ‘how can we improve?’   This has led to some very interesting discussions as we have looked at building on children’s prior learning and applied that to the order we have chosen to teach units of history and geography.  Our rolling programme has rolled round twice since we began to develop the programme. This is a great advantage as we seek to tweak and improve it all the time – we want the very best for the children in school!

Staff are resourced with good schemes of work and given many opportunities to attend high quality training, so that their subject knowledge is continually improving and they are able to offer children engaging learning opportunities.  We regularly review how our curriculum is working as a staff team and are continually improving and updating it so that we can meet the children’s needs. 

As a small school we do not have subject leads for each of the different subjects but have a system of subject co-ordination which involves the whole staff team.  We have listened to experienced colleagues in developing this system by attending meetings of the Chartered College of Teachers and the Rural Teaching Partnership as we want our children to have as challenging and inspiring curriculum as their peers attending large schools but this does mean we need to be innovative in our structures.  We have Staff Meetings regularly dedicated to a specific area of the curriculum and we look at how children progress from Acorns through to Oak and how they are developing their knowledge, skills and understanding as they progress through the school.  We spend many hours each year on specific subjects and because we are working as a whole staff team we are avoiding the limitations being a smaller school can bring, where teachers end up being the subject lead for four subjects at a time and are not meaningfully able to engage with them all.  Instead, we work as a team and this means we have done up to 18 hours a year of curriculum development for individual subjects like Geography and History and we have all heard what is going on in other classes/year groups which helps our curriculum sequencing.

We revisit our topic themes to make sure they are enabling us to deliver an exciting knowledge-rich curriculum.  We take advice from subject associations such as the Historical Association and Access Art (just two of many).  When we started this journey in 2016 we had three classes.  We have grown now to five classes and this means we have fine-tuned our plans more than once!

You can read more by clicking below:

Summary of Curriculum Drivers

Long term plan – themes – 2022-2024

How we know our curriculum is working

Art Coverage 2023

Computing Coverage 2023

D& T Coverage 2023

English Coverage 2023

French Coverage last updated 2021

Geography Coverage 2023

History Coverage 2023

Maths Coverage – White Rose Maths progression 2023

Music Coverage Year A and Year B 2023

PE Coverage – last updated 2022

PSHE Coverage Chart 2023

2022-23 RE Long Term Plan in line with locally agreed syllabus

Science Coverage 2023

You can access the DfE National Curriculum document here.

The core national curriculum subjects are English, mathematics and science; the foundation subjects are art and design; computing; design and technology; languages (French); geography; history; music and PE. All schools are also required to teach RE (Religious Education).  We also teach PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) from Y1 to Y6 and we were an ‘early adopter’ of Relationships Education which is part of PSHE.

The curriculum at Christ Church is taught through a combination of discrete subjects and topic themes. Mathematics and English are taught as discrete subjects, usually in the morning sessions but reading books and some writing opportunities are linked to that term’s topic theme wherever possible.  However we believe in quality first and would never ‘shoehorn’ a text or a subject so that it fitted into a topic area.  But children’s brains naturally make links across all their learning and we want to promote this.

Science, Computing, PE, Music , Languages (French), Religious Education and PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) are also taught as discrete subjects but again links are made to the topic theme where practicable.  We also plan in children’s spiritual development throughout the curriculum and have a common understanding of what spirituality means to us.  You can find that here: Aspects of Spirituality

Geography, History, Art & Design and Design Technology are generally taught within topic themes. Topics are planned on a two year rolling programme.  The older classes often have a Science and Topic theme per term.  Following the rolling programme ensures National Curriculum coverage.

Governors and school leaders regularly review our curriculum and consider its impact on pupil learning.  You can read more about their high expectations from the subject policy documents that the Governors use to hold school leaders to account:

Art & Design Policy 

Computing Policy 

Design & Technology Policy 

English Policy 

Geography Policy 

History Policy 

Languages Policy 

Maths Policy 

Music Policy 

PE Policy 

PSHE Policy 

RE Policy

Science Policy 

Sequencing of our Curriculum across the Different Classes using our themes

Acorn Class (YR or some years YR/Y1)

Ourselves topic Grid

Dinosaurs Grid

The Secret Garden Grid

Under the Sea Grid 

Seaside Grid

Into the Woods Grid

Transport and space Grid

We are all unique Grid

Walking through the Jungle Grid

On the Farm Grid

Fairy Tales Curriculum Grid

Traditional Stories Curriculum Grid

Pets and Vets Curriculum Grid 

Nursery Rhymes Curriculum Grid

Maple Class (Y1 or some years Y1/2)

Bones and Bodies Curriculum Grid

Polar Explorers Curriculum Grid 

Into the Woods Curriculum Grid

Our place in the world – Curriculum Grid

Festivals – curriculum grid

Wonderful weather – curriculum grid

Holly Class (Y2/Y3 generally, was just Y3 in 20/21)

Light and Dark Grid

Food and Our Bodies Grid 

Castles Grid

London Grid

Rainforest Grid 

Islands Grid 

Opposites Attract Grid

Gardens Grid

Victorians Grid

Get Ready, Set Go Grid

Birds Grid 

Egyptians Grid 

Whether the Weather Curriculum Grid

WW2 Curriculum Grid 

Willow Class (Y4 & Y5 but also included Y6 until July 2019)

Power Up! Grid

Let it Shine Grid

Location, Location, Location Grid 

From Stone Age to Iron Age Grid

Out of this World Grid

Vikings Grid  

Endangered Animals 1 Grid

Endangered Animals 2 Grid 

Romans Grid

Mountains, Rivers & Water Grid 

Inventions and Inventors Curriculum Grid 

Guess Who Curriculum Grid

Ourselves Curriculum Grid 

After the Romans, what next? Curriculum Grid 

To Infinity & Beyond Curriculum Grid

Oak Class (sometimes Y6 but generally Y5/6)

Volcanoes Electricity Curriculum Grid

Earthquakes Biomes Climate Electricity Curriculum Grid 

Ancient Greece Art of Being Human Curriculum Grid

Diverse People and Light Curriculum Grid

Dinosaurs, Fossils and Evolution Curriculum Grid

Maya and Circulation Curriculum Grid 

If you would like to know more about the curriculum and exact details of our National Curriculum coverage for each subject, then please ask your child’s class teacher and they will be happy to share more information with you.  Staff are always happy to explain how the National Curriculum is being covered for each subject and year group.  Staff work from detailed coverage charts to make sure that we are covering all the knowledge and skills that children need to succeed.  We have progression charts which help us to know how we expect children in each subject to make progress as they get older and move through the school.  We are happy to share this information with you, do just ask.

Visits and visitors have been carefully planned in to our rolling programme of topics to enrich our pupils’ learning experiences and provide an extra level of expertise to further engage them in their learning. Introducing pupils to a wide range of experts also opens up their minds to the possibilities for further study and employment in the adult world.

We welcome parental contributions to our curriculum programme. If you have skills that relate to the topics we are teaching, don’t hide your light under a bushel, come and help us make our curriculum fun and relevant for the children.

We also welcome parents as regular volunteers to enhance our curriculum provision. We appreciate regular help with reading, Forest School, cooking and art activities. All our volunteers are required to be DBS checked for the safety of our pupils. If you have time to spare we would love to welcome you as a helper.