Curriculum
At Lordship Farm, we aim to provide an excellent foundation for a fulfilling life for our children.
We believe in providing the best opportunities for our children so that they become academically and emotionally well-rounded, resilient young people with a mindset that will allow them to grow as individuals long after they have left us.
At the heart of all we do is our desire to ensure that our children become
- Successful learners
- Confident individuals
- Responsible citizens
We do this by planning a curriculum that
- Helps our children to develop 'character' and the social skills needed to form positive relationships
- Ensures equality of opportunity and inclusivity
- Fosters our children’s creativity
- Creates resilient learners who are able to overcome difficulties and set backs
- Nurtures a love of learning in our children and the skills needed to learn independently
- Teaches the knowledge, understanding, skills, attitudes and attributes that will help our children to understand their diverse world.
Whole School Assemblies
At Lordship we cover international themes within our assemblies, teaching children about British Values and how they can contribute to the wider world. Pupils also have the opportunity to sing collectively and reflection is encouraged where cultural and ethical themes are explored.
Each year, pupils also access grief awareness assemblies to allow them to understand the related emotions. Lordship Farm is a Contact Me school with Stand By Me, Hertfordshire Children's Bereavement Charity.
To see what's coming up this term click here
Early Reading and Phonics
At Lordship Farm we use the Little Wandle, DFE approved phonics scheme for pupils in YR-Y1 and for Y2-Y6 as support for phonics and reading interventions
Please click here to find out more about what Little Wandle looks like at Lordship Farm
Our curriculum objectives are derived from the 2014 National Curriculum Programmes of Study. Please click here to find out more about the National Curriculum.
Our curriculum objectives are derived from the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage 2021. Please click here for more information.
Our Subject coordinators have produced comprehensive documents that detail the objectives taught in each year group and are designed to ensure that our children’s knowledge builds incrementally each year, our curriculum remains broad and balanced, and meaningful links are made between subjects where appropriate.
Subject Statements
English
We aim to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word and to develop a love of literature through reading for enjoyment.
We teach reading, writing and spelling following the CUSP Curriculum. This is an evidence informed, carefully sequenced English curriculum, which maps core content in reading and writing across the primary journey, ensuring that learning is taught and revisited over time so that pupils commit their understanding to the long-term memory.
Writing
CUSP writing makes meaningful links with other subjects in the curriculum. Expert subject knowledge is carefully woven into each module with the opportunity for pupils to rehearse key knowledge and skills before applying them in extended outcomes. Grammar and punctuation are taught explicitly in writing lessons and the Cambridge Penpals programme is used for handwriting.
Reading
Each cohort will have a suite of core texts that will form the ‘depth study’ for the academic year. These texts have been mapped carefully to ensure a breadth of experiences, authors, texts and themes is addressed across the Primary years. In addition to these texts, there are core poems that each year group studies in detail. The pupils follow a weekly learning sequence which uses pre-coded questions with accompanying response frameworks to help develop comprehension skills. The love of reading is enthusiastically promoted throughout the school.
Spelling
CUSP Spelling has been purposefully built around the principles of evidence-led practice. This is to ensure that pupils acquire deep knowledge about the English spelling system and that this learning endures. CUSP Spelling is a balanced approach, drawing together knowledge about phonics and vocabulary and pairing this with pattern seeking and reasoning.
Maths
We aim to produce confident mathematicians who can use and apply their knowledge and understanding in a variety of contexts. We endeavour to provide children with a diverse range of opportunities to use their maths skills across the curriculum. Children are encouraged to take risks and to face challenges and problems with a positive approach.
Maths includes many areas including the number system, measures, shape, problem solving and handling data and these are covered throughout each year following the 2014 National Curriculum. It is taught daily and includes individual, paired and group activities using mental and written work with an emphasis on using appropriate mathematical vocabulary when discussing mathematical concepts. Additional fluency sessions also take place outside of the maths lesson to help to embed core skills.
As a school, we follow the mastery approach to maths and apply the elements of this in all lessons. We adopt the approach that everyone can do maths and children work through tasks at their own pace, deepening and broadening understanding as they encounter a range of tasks and contexts. A range of scaffolds, supports, models and resources are used to support children in using the concrete, pictorial, abstract structures of maths.
Our maths calculation policy can be found here
Science
The CUSP science modules support the framework for our context-based science curriculum which pays close attention to guidance provided by the National Curriculum sequence and content. It is infused with evidence-led practice and enriched with retrieval studies to ensure long-term retention of foundational knowledge. The foundations of our science learning are cemented in the EYFS through learning within the Natural World, and People, Culture and Communities. This ambitious interpretation of the National Curriculum places knowledge, vocabulary, working and thinking scientifically at the heart of our principles, structure and practice.
Through studying science at Lordship Farm, pupils become ‘a little more expert’ as they progress through the curriculum, accumulating, connecting and making sense of the rich substantive and disciplinary knowledge.
Computing
Our scheme of work for computing scheme provides a creative approach to delivering the 2014 National Curriculum. Using the learning objectives from ICT Essentials Curriculum we offer an innovative and engaging program from the EYFS to Year 6.
The content is broken down into strands and then organised into learning themes. At the end of each strand we carry out assessments and an independent task enabling the children to demonstrate their computer capability around the knowledge and understanding of the term. This allows the children to embrace current and emerging technologies to develop their computer science concepts, skills and experience. At Lordship we offer a wide variety of resources and software in order to support teaching and learning in computing.
Useful Computing Websites
The National Museum of Computing
National Association of Advisors for Computers in Education
National crime agency with a focus on online protection
Humanities: History and Geography
Our History and Geography teaching follows our CUSP curriculum. Each term will include blocks of teaching for each subject which are designed to build on knowledge and skills as children progress throughout the school. In addition, children have the opportunity to participate in regular enrichment activities such as specialist visitors or themed days in school.
Physical Education
At Lordship Farm we place a big emphasis on physical activity and the need to be healthy. We aim to provide sustainable high-quality PE and School Sport experiences that are innovative, creative and enjoyable. The PE curriculum consists of 4 main areas, gymnastics, dance, games and athletics. These are taught progressively throughout the school from the basic skills in Early Years, to more routines and tactical awareness of different sports in upper KS2. Outdoor and adventurous and paralympic activities are introduced in KS2, including orienteering, boccia and new age kurling.
As it is a statutory requirement that all children can swim 25 metres by the end of Year 6, Year 3 and 4 children have a term of swimming, which is aimed at developing their basic swimming skills. Children who haven’t reached the required level are then offered further top up sessions in later years if possible.
To enhance their sporting experiences, our children are offered a variety of extra -curricular clubs and have opportunities to take part in both intra and inter school competitions.
Religious Education
Religious Education provokes challenging questions about the ultimate meaning and purpose of life, beliefs about God, self and the nature of reality, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human. It challenges pupils to reflect on, consider, analyse, interpret and evaluate issues of truth, belief, faith and ethics and to communicate their responses. It develops pupils’ awareness, knowledge and understanding of Christianity and other principal religions, religious traditions and world views.
Religious Education has an important role to play in preparing pupils for adult life. It encourages pupils to develop their sense of identity and belonging. At Lordship Farm School, we use the Hertfordshire agreed scheme of work to teach Religious Education. This allows us to explore a range of religious beliefs in a variety of ways. The children also get the opportunity to visit local places of worship which is important for developing respect for others.
Music
The teaching of music in our school follows the aims of the National Curriculum. We want children to experience music by way of practical engagement in performing, composing and appraising. Children are taught to internalise music to develop aural memory and the emphasis is placed on sound before symbol. Singing and work with rhythm play an important part in the development of musical skills.
All children have opportunities to sing within lessons, in singing assemblies and in musical productions. The recorder is taught in Year 5 within the music curriculum, giving every child the experience of learning an instrument. Extra-curricular activities, which include a choir, orchestra and various instrumental ensembles, provide further opportunities to develop performance skills in concerts within the school and the wider community.
French
Years 3 to 6 have a discrete lessons using materials from Kapow Primary to foster the children’s understanding of the French language and culture. This might be on a weekly basis or blocked per half term. We are aiming for French to be spoken creatively and spontaneously and we practise really hard to speak French without an English accent! Once we have learnt some French words, phrases and sentences we try to link our language knowledge to the grammar we are learning in English.
P.S.H.E. (Personal, Social and Health Education)
Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PHSE) at Lordship Farm Primary School is guided by the National Curriculum and the guidance for Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education published in 2019. Our PSHE provision aims to developing confident citizens and successful learners who are creative, resourceful, and able to identify and solve problems. Our intention is to ensure that by the end of the children’s time with us, they will have experienced a broad and balanced PHSE curriculum that is accessible to all, and they will leave us as well-rounded individuals with open minds.
We subscribe to Coram Life Education’s SCARF programme (which stands for Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience and Friendship). The programme provides a whole-school approach which encourages children to build upon these essential ‘SCARF’ foundations, which are crucial for them to achieve their best, academically and socially. Our curriculum also enables coverage of the British Values by helping children to clarify values and beliefs, develop an individual identity and respect the freedom of others to express their identity. Through the teaching of PSHE and RSE, we endeavour to support our children to develop the knowledge, skills, and attributes they need to manage their lives in a diverse society; now and in the future. Both within and outside of our PSHE and RSE schemes of work, we also aim to encourage children to develop their sense of self-worth by playing a positive role in contributing to school life and the wider community.
To find out more about how the SCARF values of Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience and Friendship can help your child to be their best – both at school and at home, visit the parents section of their website: https://www.coramlifeeducation.org.uk/family-scarf
Design and Technology
Our Design and Technology teaching follows the CUSP curriculum, observing the principles of evidence-led practice. The CUSP Design and Technology curriculum is organised into blocks with each block covering a particular area, including food and nutrition, mechanisms, structures, systems, electrical systems, understanding materials and textiles. Progression in each area has been deliberately woven into the fabric of the curriculum so that pupils revisit the key areas throughout their Primary journey at increasing degrees of challenge and complexity. Our Design and Technology curriculum equips pupils to successfully think, work and communicate like a designer.
Art and Design
Through our teaching in Art and Design, we develop skills and foster creativity in our children. Knowledge and skills are taught through the aspects of; colour, pattern, texture, shape and space, also of line and form. Children’s skills are applied and developed through both 2D and 3D mediums. Sketchbooks are used with increased frequency throughout the school years to record, develop and evaluate work. In every year group art is taught explicitly, although it is primarily project based within the overarching topic of the term. Inspiration is taken from famous artists, art from other cultures and/or time periods, craft makers, architects and others. Every year Arts Week enables the entire school to take a creative approach to a school-wide theme, such as ‘From a Distance’ and ‘Take a Closer Look’. During this week all Key Stage 1 and 2 children have the opportunity to work with a professional artist.
Please see the Curriculum Map for each year group for an overview of the year and the Termly Overview for a more detailed look at each term.
