Curriculum – Christchurch CE Primary | Stoke-on-Trent

Our Curriculum Vision

“Learning with God and Each Other to be the Best We Can Be”

We are one Christ-like family seeking to achieve our school aims and allowing all to flourish by demonstrating the same endurance, friendship, dignity, and respect as the Good Samaritan did with respect as our key:

We will achieve this by demonstrating respect in all that we do as we live life together just as the Good Samaritan did.

Realising our God given potential

Enjoying each day

Supporting and serving our communities

Praising and Worshipping

Encouraging each other

Celebrating diversity

Treating others as we would want to be treated. Luke 6: 31

At the heart of everything we do is developing the understanding of RESPECT: respect for others, self-respect, respect for faith and respect for the world around them. This is alongside developing their understanding of friendship and endurance.

We would like our children to develop a love of learning and life, enjoying every opportunity that is given to them. We want our curriculum to inspire them and encourage them to flourish both academically and spiritually using the skills and experiences we have provided to find out new knowledge themselves as independent learners. Our desire is that all our children develop a deep understanding of the knowledge and skills required as part of the National Curriculum. We hope this will develop an understanding of the importance of learning and will help them to aspire to great things for their futures. We would like our children to develop an understanding of what it truly means to be a respectful, global citizen. We will help our youngest learners to flourish as they develop the skills of toileting, self-feeding, sharing, turn taking and being able to tell right from wrong. We will support the children as they develop into effective communicators with a wider range of vocabulary and an ability to hold extended conversations with their peers and the adults they work with. As part of this we will help the children develop the speaking and listening skills they need to communicate with others in a range of situations. We will support our children as they develop the social skills and coping strategies that are needed to be part of our school and wider community. The development of good mental health will have a high priority and we will work hard to develop our children’s emotional literacy. We will offer opportunities to parents so they can share in their child’s learning with the intention of improving parental engagement. We will work hard to develop resilience in our children so that they can demonstrate a ‘can-do’ attitude throughout their life. We will provide opportunities for the children to develop the life skills that will help them later in life. As part of this we will develop Road Safety skills, E-Safety knowledge as well as the skills and knowledge needed to lead a healthy and active life. We will also provide opportunities to experience a range of activities outside of school time and away from the school grounds – a range of educational trips and extra-curricular activities to enhance our curriculum offering.

Our Curriculum

Our curriculum at Christ Church can be summarised in the following statement:

‘An exciting, inclusive, progressive and comprehensive curriculum that meets the needs of our children, based upon our pupils’ early childhood experiences as well as the local geographical context.’

At Christ Church CE Primary Academy our curriculum is a broad and balanced learning challenge curriculum which uses individual classes’ learning challenges as a means to acquiring knowledge and incorporating necessary skills and progression. The national curriculum (knowledge and key skills) is taught via a series of subject specific learning challenges.

The acquisition, and then application, of specific skills is extremely important as is the acquisition of knowledge. Our curriculum provides numerous opportunities for this. Termly educational visits undertaken by all year groups and regular opportunities for outdoor learning also help to enhance the learning opportunities we provide. The weekly homework, again linked to the learning challenges, provides yet further opportunities for consolidation of learning or pre-learning challenge research.

An overall whole school curriculum outline shows all learning challenges for each academic year. A long term plan is created by all year groups which shows the areas of the national curriculum or Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum to be covered during that year. The medium and short term plans then provide more detailed information regarding how the specific knowledge and skills will be taught.

The following published schemes are used to deliver specific areas of the curriculum:

Computing – Teach Computing and project EVOLVE for E-Safety

Languages – Language Angels, French

Mathematics – White Rose

Phonics – Read Write Inc.

Spelling – Headstart

Reading Skills – Cracking Comprehension

PE/Games – Rising Stars

RE – Stoke-on-Trent Agreed Syllabus 2021 – 2026 which contains Understanding Christianity Units

The only specialist teaching taking place in school is music. Two specialist music teachers deliver the music curriculum to the whole school as well as providing opportunities for the children to perform to an audience as part of a Rock Band, Brass/Woodwind Group or choir.

To facilitate the teaching of our curriculum the school environment is tidy and well organised with displays which not only celebrate pupils’ achievement but provide necessary support and prompts via learning walls. This allows our children to develop into independent learners.

Our Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum provides a balance of adult-led and child-initiated activities with more formal teaching methods. As the children develop and progress through the foundation stage activities become more adult led in preparation for year 1 and beyond. Our nursery and reception classrooms are purposeful, language rich environments.

Spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is very important to us and we provide a wealth of enrichment activities and opportunities for our pupils to access. We also ensure that our children learn about Fundamental British Values and are provided with opportunities to discuss and review local, national and international events as part of our PSHE provision.

If you would like more information about the curriculum we offer to our pupils you can speak to our Principal, Mrs Paula Scattergood or our Vice Principal, Mrs Emma Wilkes.

Cultural Capital Experiences and Activities

As a school we support a range of awareness days and celebrations throughout the academic year. These form part of our broad and balanced curriculum providing our children with a range of enrichment activities throughout the year.

Cultural Capital Experiences and Visits 2024-2025 v1

Mathematics at Christ Church

At Christ Church CE Primary Academy we use the National Curriculum for Mathematics (2014) as the basis of our mathematics programme whilst following the White Rose small steps from Reception to Year 6. We are committed to ensuring that all pupils achieve mastery in the key concepts of mathematics, appropriate for their age group, in order that they make genuine progress and avoid gaps in their understanding that provide barriers to learning as they move through education. The Concrete, Pictorial and Abstract approach (CPA), assessment for learning, an emphasis on investigation, problem solving, the development of mathematical thinking and development of teacher subject knowledge are therefore essential components of the Christ Church CE Primary Academy approach to this subject.

Lessons involve concrete materials, pictorial representations and abstract representations to support teaching. Resources include white rose supplemented by other appropriate resources to support and stretch learners.

Lessons start with flashback retrieval questions. Our differentiated approach to independent learning is through bronze, silver, gold and platinum activities. These activities contain problems related to the same small step objective and pupils do not have ‘caps’ on the colour of activity that they can achieve. Staff ‘live mark during lessons’ so pupils get ongoing feedback before moving on. From year 1 to 6 there are weekly ‘big maths sessions’ which allow teachers to focus on times tables practice, number bond recall and areas identified through formative assessment.

Throughout the school, maths lessons promote discussion and exploration, with a strong emphasis on mathematical language, speaking in full sentences and reasoning with children consistently being required to explain how they know. Activities require pupils to use and interpret stage 3 language and to read and interpret questions on a regular basis.

Information to help support your children with their mathematics learning can be found at the following websites:

Stoke-on-Trent Mathematics Partnership

We also have these handy documents which show what your child is being taught and how we teach it. The whole school mathematics progression document identifies the key knowledge that children are taught in each year group for each aspect of mathematics.

Whole School Mathematics Progression

Mathematics Scheme of Learning

Calculation Policy

Numicon Guide for parents