Becoming the best we can

Curriculum

Wider curriculum subjects are taught through a thematic (topic) based approach, planned for in line with the expectations of the National Curriculum.

The current cycle runs on a 2 year programme enabling teachers to plan in year group teams and ensuring that all children in the same year group receive the same opportunities irrespective of which class they are in.

KS1 Curriculum Map

LKS2 Curriculum Map

UKS2 Curriculum Map

Wider curriculum learning is displayed in each classroom on displays, promoting substantive knowledge and the key vocabulary of current learning. Further enrichment opportunities are planned for to support an engaging curriculum for example, RE visits and Arts Week. We are in the process of reviewing our wider curriculum and will be uploading the new learning journeys.

Curriculum subjects

An overview of subjects covered can be found below

At FCCE we LOVE reading! By choosing exciting books, promoting book talk and having daily story time sessions, we aim to develop all children’s love of reading. Children are exposed to a variety of authors from the past through to the present, promoting a range of genres within non-fiction and fiction texts. 

Phonics

To ensure our pupils develop strong reading foundations, we have adopted the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Scheme across the school. This systematic approach to teaching phonics equips our pupils with the essential skills they need to become confident, fluent readers. Through daily, structured phonics lessons, our pupils learn to decode words effectively, building a secure understanding of letter-sound relationships.

For more information, please follow this link. https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

Key Stage 2

Recognising the importance of reading comprehension as a crucial life skill, we have adopted Fred’s Teaching Scheme in Key Stage 2. This approach encourages our pupils to delve deeper into texts, developing their ability to analyse, interpret, and critically engage with the written word. Through targeted lessons and discussions, our pupils learn to extract meaning, make inferences, and articulate their understanding of the texts they encounter.

Reading Enjoyment

At Frampton Cotterell CofE Primary School, we believe that reading is a shared experience that brings our community together. We actively involve parents and carers in their children’s reading journeys, providing guidance and resources to support learning at home. We have a school library and will be launching our outdoor reading shed in the coming weeks, to help our community foster a lifelong love of reading.

​​Reading at home & support

We ask that every child reads at home at least 5 times a week and that there is a note of this in their reading record. If your child is struggling to read at home try…

  • Taking it in turns to read their story book (a sentence/ page each.)
  • Mix up books with reading recipes, websites, magazines etc.
  • Go to a bookshop/ library and help them choose books they are excited about.

Help your child create a cosy reading area that they are excited to read in.

Before reading the book, start by helping your child to engage in their book (e.g. if the book is about dogs, start by chatting with your child about dogs, drawing a picture of a dog, researching dogs online etc.)

Links for home learning & enjoying books

https://www.thereaderteacher.com This is a great website for finding new and exciting books & authors.

https://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk You can read samples of books here & search by genre.

At FCCE, we are all authors! Each class has a daily Literacy lesson which helps to develop important writing skills. There are many different elements to these sessions and are usually taught through different genres of writing. Here are some of the things we practise on a regular basis:

Handwriting

The children are given handwriting sessions each week. These lessons focus on improving the pupil’s presentation skills. The school follows the fully cursive and joined hand writing style.

Grammar and Punctuation

Classes in Key Stage 1 and 2 will have specific lessons based on teaching the correct use of grammar and punctuation. This can take many different forms but will concentrate on children writing grammatically-accurate sentences with various types of punctuation used correctly.

‘Big Write’

In Key Stage 2, each class will work towards completing a ‘Big Write’. Every fortnight, pupils will be given the opportunity to plan, draft, edit and publish a piece of independent writing. This work is then used to help assess your child’s writing skills.

Spellings

Under the new National Curriculum, spelling is now more important than ever. Your child will have a variety of spelling strategies taught during each term and parents will be informed of their progress at the end of each term. Here is a copy of the recent parents’ workshop on how we will be teaching spellings at FCCE under the new curriculum:

Spelling for Parents final copy

Useful links

Frampton Cotterell CofE Primary School child friendly writing KS1

Year 3 Learning Objectives writing child friendly

Year 4 Learning Objectives writing child friendly

Year 5 Learning Objectives writing child friendly

Year 6 Learning Objectives writing child friendly

We strive to teach a full and rich mathematics curriculum to enable all of our children to become happy and confident mathematicians.

We endeavour to create a culture, which encourages our children to view themselves as capable mathematicians with an enjoyment for the subject.

We use a spiral curriculum to teach Maths, which is supported by White Rose and NCETM materials. During lessons children learn and consolidate skills and knowledge through a sequential and progressive approach. Children engage in learn it, solve it and prove it tasks to develop their fluency and reasoning skills. Within our lessons, teachers use a range of concrete, pictorial and abstract resources to support learning.

The mathematics curriculum is divided into the nine key areas of the National Curriculum and are measured against Age Related Expectations and Standards: 

  • Number and Place Value
  • Addition and Subtraction
  • Fractions, Decimals and Percentages
  • Ratio and Proportion
  • Algebra
  • Measurement
  • Geometry
  • Statistics

Useful links to support your child’s maths learning at home

For all age groups

Topmarks https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=16

Mathsframe https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/category/22/most-popular

Mathplayground https://www.mathplayground.com/

Cool Maths 4 Kids https://www.coolmath4kids.com/

Supermovers https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers/ks2-maths-collection/z7frpg8

KS1

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/topics/numeracy

Ideas for games that aren’t online

https://thirdspacelearning.com/blog/fun-maths-games-activities-for-kids/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCob4tkfOSXy6yav9Y54SKIQ

KS2

https://thirdspacelearning.com/blog/16-fun-maths-activities-ks2-back-to-school-summer-brain-drain/

Maths apps with a subscription fee

https://www.themathsfactor.com/

https://doodlelearning.com/

https://komodomath.com

Science is taught primarily through our Topic cycle. However, children may have discrete Science lessons to cover certain aspects of the Science curriculum.

There is a significant emphasis on practical investigations encouraging pupils to ask questions, make accurate observations and test hypotheses.

Click here for National Curriculum 2014 agreed Science Coverage for Primary School children.

History and Geography at FCCE are taught primarily through our Topic cycle.

However, children may have discrete History and Geography lessons to cover certain aspects of the National Curriculum.

Religious Education (RE) is taught across all phases. We use the Understanding Christianity scheme for four terms of learning and two terms each year are given to teaching worldviews, using a two year cycle (Islam, Hinduism, Judaism & Sikhism).

This structure ensures progression through the Key Stages within Understanding Christianity – enabling children to develop their skills of reflection, questioning and interpretation.

In addition, there are at least two Faith Days during the year, when the whole school is off curriculum and focussing on a world view – often with visitors from within the faith. This gives children the opportunity to develop enquiry and empathy, as well as encouraging interest and promoting understanding.

We are passionate about ensuring every child has the skills necessary to achieve in PE, sport and life through teaching children the physical literacy and emotional thinking skills they’ll need.

This unique and child-centred approach is achieved through our REAL PE scheme which we follow for PE lessons. The REAL PE approach focuses on teaching pupils about the 5 PE cogs: physical, social, cognitive, personal and creative. Each of these cogs is focused on each term and we link these to our school’s termly intra-competition.

Please click on the links below to read more about our REAL PE scheme or please check out our PE sports board in the hall to learn more about our PE lessons.

We are very excited to have purchased a new PE scheme of work which provides challenge and enjoyment for all pupils. For details of how PE is taught, please click on the following links:

Real PE website

PE-curriculum-overview

PE funding report 23-24

Competition

Our school prides itself on its inclusive and active school ethos where we provide all pupils with an extensive range of sporting activities, competitions and sporting experiences. Each year, we ensure that pupils experience 6 opportunities for intra-competition based around a range of different fundamental skills and sports; these whole-school competitions range from individual challenges to group challenges and culminate in our final intra-competition: sports day. Frampton Cotterell School has numerous extra-curricular activities both before school, after school and at lunchtime. We take part in numerous out of school competitions and leagues. We have 2 teams entered into a local netball league and take part in a football league for boys and girls. Additionally, we take numerous groups to the yearly Festival of Sport competition and play in a variety of cluster school matches for tag-rugby, cricket, netball and football.

PE Calendar

Frampton Cotterell Primary school has a variety of sporting activities running throughout the year. 

Wow Travel Tracker- 30 minutes of Exercise a Day 

Exercising for 30 minutes a day is really important (that is less than 5% of your day). Take a look on the website attachment for lots of different ideas for exercising that you can do during Lockdown- lots of them are great fun to do as a family and there are ideas to do inside and outside of your homes. Use the calendar (either pick one up from outside of school, or print this one on the website) to tick off the days which you exercise.

Badges

If you exercise 4 times (for at least 30 minutes) a week, for a whole month, you will earn your Travel Tracker badge. These will be available for collection outside of school at the end of the month to collect. Or, we can keep hold of them for you and give them out when you return to school 

Weekly 60 Second Challenges and Enjoy the Outdoors Challenges

Each week, we will be sending out a new 60 Second Physical Challenge, which could be completed by all members of the family at home and can be done inside your home; additionally, we will be sending out a weekly ‘Enjoy the outdoors’ challenge- which are great ideas for you and your family to enjoy during your daily exercise, or could be completed in your gardens.

Miss Newman has created some dance video tutorials for you to watch and participate in!

Our computing curriculum follows the South Gloucestershire scheme of work, however, it is adapted to the needs of our children and enriched so that it engages pupils and provides them with the core skills they need to be computer literate in a digital age.

Our curriculum provides opportunities to practice skills across a range of subjects but is predominantly taught discreetly through lessons which enthuse and inspire children of all abilities and ages.

Our learning journey for French is to come.

We actively encourage students to become involved in music and love being able to showcase our instrumentalists in performances too!

Click here for our music development plan

Instrumental/vocal tuition in school

We have a range of teachers coming into school. Click here for more info about music lessons.