At Whipperley the curriculum is concerned with what a child learns and how this learning is organised. Our staff plan for a broad, balanced and exciting curriculum appropriate to the needs of our children.

We publish individual year group curriculum Information each term so that you know what your child is learning in their class. We also hold year group information sessions throughout the year so you gain an overview of your child’s year group, including staffing, areas to be taught, homework and visits. All our year group curriculum information is available on the class pages section of the website.

We currently cover two Key Stages of the National Curriculum across the school:

• Early Years Foundation Stage
• Key Stage 1 (Years 1 & 2)

Early Years Foundation Stage

The curriculum in Foundation covers the three prime areas of:

Communication & Language

Physical Development

Personal, Social & Emotional development

And the 4 specific areas of:

Literacy

Mathematics

Understanding the world

Expressive arts & design

At Whipperley we believe firmly that young children learn through first hand experiences based on exploratory and practical activities, and that these activities take place in a lively and stimulating environment.

A lot of what goes on in the Foundation classrooms will look like play, but play and creative activities provide the means through which young children can express their thoughts and feelings and explore their world.

Through carefully constructed activities like weighing, measuring, listening, talking, singing, exploring and experimenting children will be learning all the time to express ideas, solve problems, get on with others and to make sense and order out of the world around them. Many of these activities form the basis from which number (maths) and language (reading and writing) skills develop. We follow the letters and sounds phonic programme to enhance the children’s reading and writing skills.

The school day, in the Foundation classes, is not usually divided up into set periods. Instead the curriculum is integrated which means that subjects are not time-tabled for regular slots each week but taken as and when teacher and class find it appropriate. A class will often take a topic or theme and explore it in depth, which will involve bringing in knowledge from a variety of subject areas.

As well as developing reading, writing and maths skills, a week in the Foundation Stage classroom will include stories and poems, art and craft, talking and listening, topic work, music and physical education.

The indoor and outdoor classroom is usually an informal, though carefully structured place in which children will be working at their own pace, in a variety of groupings, engaged in a variety of activities – from learning games to reading and being read to, painting and making things.

Key stage 1

In Year 1 and Year 2 children are taught the full range of the National Curriculum subjects. These include; English, Maths, Science, Computing, Geography, History, Art, Design Technology (DT), Physical Education (PE) and Religious Education (RE). These subjects are usually linked together in topics or themes which may run for one or two weeks.

We also teach Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education. Details on each subject can be found here.