The School Curriculum

When pupils start in Reception, their first year is spent working towards the Early Years Foundation stage (known as EYFS). Reception builds on the work done by our youngest pupils in their nurseries and pre-schools. Further information about EYFS can be found on our EYFS page, here.

In Years 1 to 6, all schools must follow the National Curriculum (see below for guides to this). Each school is free to decide how it will organise its curriculum in order to achieve the best outcomes for its pupils. At Cherry Garden, each class follows a different topic every term around which the wider curriculum is taught. Some subjects lend themselves better than others to this approach, for example, English, mathematics and science are often taught separately (although English and mathematics skills are often applied within other subjects).

On a typical day children will be taught a full session of English and mathematics (usually in the morning). They will then spend the remainder of the day learning about other subjects which may be linked to their topic.

Each term (three times a year) teachers publish a class newsletter detailing the specific learning which will take place in each subject that term. Copies of these newsletters are available on the class pages of this site.

A Cross-Curricular Approach

Wherever possible, teachers plan in a way that exploits meaningful links between subjects. For example, if a class were learning to write letters in English and were also learning about life as an evacuee in history then the teacher might plan for children to write letters, from an evacuee's point of view, to their families. The same class may also study art work depicting the blitz and use this as a platform for their own work. Making such links enables children to apply the skills they are learning in a meaningful context and also provides depth to the curriculum.

In the vast majority of subjects, our subject leaders have carefully mapped out the skills and knowledge requirements of the National Curriculum so that they provide a clear progression from Years 1 to 6. These maps allow teachers in each year group to carefully match the work to the needs and abilities of their pupils whilst ensuring that children are progressing at the correct rate towards the end goal. In some subjects, such as PE, Music and PSHE, the school utilises externally-written schemes of work which achieve a similar outcome to those written by the school leaders.

Curriculum Maps

Teachers map out the learning that will take place each term under the topic they have chosen. These maps cover every subject except English and mathematics. Not all subjects are taught every term, for example, teachers often alternate between history and geography or art and design & technology. This enables more time to be spent on a subject within a particular term and prevents children from experiencing a 'fragmented curriculum' (where they spend a small amount of time on every subject every week without exploring any subject in any depth).

The current maps for each year group can be viewed below. Whilst these are planned ahead for the whole year, teacher may sometimes make changes mid-year in order to best meet the needs of the class they are teaching.

Subject Progression Maps

The following school-written maps show how skills and knowledge will be progressed and developed over time in a range of National Curriculum Subjects. These progression documents match the National Curriculum and in some cases have been written alongside a bought in scheme of work for a particular subject, such as the Kapow scheme of work for Music.

For more information about the curriculum and how it is taught, please contact Mr Hutchings (headteacher) via the details found in the Contact Us section.