The Primary Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed to be enriching and stimulating, whilst meeting and exceeding the expectations set out in the national curriculum.

The implementation of our curriculum is complemented by a wide range of texts to support English as well as mathematical equipment to support and master numeracy skills. We value cross curricular learning and create strong links between core and non-core subjects.

We aim to develop inquisitive and confident learners and ensure all children have opportunities to achieve high standards. Our curriculum is designed to develop a capacity to accommodate new knowledge building on prior knowledge and experiences, resulting in curious minds and a thirst for learning.

At Edmonton County we believe that all children are entitled to equality of opportunity within all subjects irrespective of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, physical or mental condition or background.

We are committed to providing a curriculum that is appropriate to, and meets the needs of, every child, enabling each to reach their full potential. Teachers provide learning opportunities that are matched to the needs of our children, including children with special educational needs and disability as well as those that are identified as being more able and talented.

We aim for our curriculum to develop excitement, creativity and be meaningful for all children.

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At Edmonton County Primary we believe that literacy and communication are key life skills and that through the English curriculum we should help children develop the skills and knowledge that will enable them to communicate effectively and creatively, through spoken and written language. Children will develop their skills in reading and writing, not only in English lessons, but across the curriculum. The progression of skills in reading include the development of word reading and comprehension. The progression of skills in writing include the development of transcription, handwriting, composition, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation.

Reading at Edmonton County Primary

At Edmonton County Primary, we are BONKERS about BOOKS! We therefore use high quality texts in our English lessons and across the curriculum to support other learning. Children also have access to a plethora of wonderful books to choose from. We want children to love books and love reading!

In Key Stage One, children take part in a daily Phonics lesson in which they focus not only on learning sounds and blending these to read words, but also on writing and letter formation. They take home a phonics book each week to consolidate their learning as well as another levelled scheme book. We use the Ruth Miskin Read, Write Inc Programme which is a synthetic, well-structured approach to teaching early reading. The children get to know Fred the Frog who is only able to speak in sounds.

 The following video is an example of blending sounds with Fred.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEzfpod5w_Q

In Key Stage 2, children use the Renaissance Accelerated Reader programme which allows them to read books that are suited to their reading ability and then take a quiz that relates to the book that they have read. This means that not only are they developing their word reading skills but also their comprehensions skills. The children receive certificates based on the number of words that they read and this has become a competition that all of the children love! We have already had some word millionaires! 

Children also take part in daily whole-class Guided Reading lessons in which they focus on learning new vocabulary as well as learning the comprehension skills required to tackle inference, retrieval, prediction, explanation and summarizing questions.

Children, especially in KS1, have opportunities to read individually with an adult which provides time for both assessment and individual teaching. We encourage parents to listen to their child read daily, to talk about books and to read to their children. We believe that this helps to develop reading skills, and also supports a lifelong love of reading.

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At Edmonton County, we believe that mathematics is an essential part of everyday life, and with this in mind, we strive to provide the best possible mathematical education; ensuring all pupils leave school with the necessary skills and self- confidence to apply their knowledge to creatively solve any problems or tasks. At Edmonton County we want all pupils to experience the beauty, power and enjoyment of mathematics and develop a sense of curiosity about the subject with a clear understanding.  We foster positive ‘can do’ attitudes and all children are challenged and encouraged to excel in Mathematics.

 We use The White Rose Maths approach which focuses on maths mastery — children are taught to fully grasp topics, not just scrape the surface, so by the time they move on to more advanced lessons they have a deep understanding of foundational concepts. As a result, children benefit from improved learning retention and they develop mathematical understanding, reasoning and problem-solving abilities that will stay with them for life.

The national curriculum for mathematics aims to ensure that all pupils:

• become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately
• reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language
• can solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions