What do we believe makes a great curriculum?

At Mansbridge Primary School, we believe that children learn best through an engaging and hands-on curriculum. For us this means a curriculum that is enjoyable, practical and peppered with memorable moments and experiences that enable children to secure key knowledge and skills in all subjects.

Our curriculum is well planned; knowledge and skills build logically and sequentially and are reinforced through other subjects where possible. We regularly revisit and retrieve prior learning to ensure it sticks within children’s long term memories and builds strong foundations for learning.

We maintain a clear focus on the development of language, communication and vocabulary across our curriculum as we believe strong oracy skills lead to confidence and success socially, emotionally and academically. Key, subject specific vocabulary is identified and studied in more depth in order to strengthen children’s understanding of topics and build on knowledge acquired in previous year groups.

Finally, we aim to offer a curriculum that makes use of our location, culture and heritage. Our children are inspired to learn about the place in which they live. This is incorporated into our educational programs providing the foundations for children to develop their own sense of identity and community and reach out into the wider world.

Enriching our curriculum

Our curriculum includes a wide range of enriching experiences and opportunities both within and beyond the school day. We offer a variety of after school clubs which, as well as being fun and engaging, support our core curriculum offer and help pupils develop more specialised skills. These include karate, singing club and multisport.

Embedded into our curriculum are a variety of engaging and memorable enhancements. These may include:

- Educational trips and visits

- Regular visits from subject specialists such as authors and artists who, as well as talking to our children, often also work with them on a creative projects

- The use of stimuli such as real life artefacts for history or real life animals for science!

- Engagement in specialist subject days e.g., Design Technology day

- Engagement in events such as World Book Day and First Aid Day

All of our school trips and visits are key ‘real life’ experiences which are threaded into our units of work across all subjects. We maximise the benefits of these by ensuring all preceding and follow up learning is strongly linked to these experiences as we believe this inspires and engages our pupils.

Please click on the links below to access each year group's long term plan which shows you what the children will be learning throughout the year. 

How do we teach children to read?

Our synthetic phonics scheme is Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS). ELS is a phonics programme which helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. We use this programme to ensure all children to be readers by 7. If you would like to learn more, please watch the introduction video.

Our phonics provision map ensures pupils build confidence and fluency.  Take a look at it below to see what each year group is learning:

Every child at Mansbridge follows the Oxford reading scheme from year R through to year 6.

Oxford Reading Tree has an extensive collection of titles, all expertly levelled to support children’s reading progress. With well-loved characters, fine levelling and a rich and varied choice of writing styles and genres, Oxford Reading Tree provides everything children in the Early Years and Key Stage 1 need to become confident readers.

TreeTops is an expertly levelled reading programme for juniors.

With a wide collection of finely levelled books at key stage 2, TreeTops supports progression right up the end of year 6 and offers children fun and variety to keep them reading.

Each child at Mansbridge has a reading folder containing their Oxford book and their ‘Reading Regularly’ card, which they take home each day to record their reading. We also encourage children to make their own choices of book from our school library and class book corners. We aim for all pupils to read at home at least three times a week, and pride ourselves on promoting a love of reading.

What about writing?

At Mansbridge, our writing units are often based on the high-quality, rich texts we read in class. We start units by immersing pupils in a text or real-life experience to build language and develop vocabulary. Pupils explore texts in different ways through reading and skill development, before producing their own piece of writing.

The use of high-quality books within the English curriculum is at the heart of our school’s approach, engaging and supporting children to become motivated and independent readers and writers. If children enjoy reading, they read more frequently and become better readers, which then inspires their writing.

Please see below for each year group's English Overviews which show what the children will learn throughout the year.

If you have any questions surrounding our school curriculum, please direct them to the school office.