English

At Westcourt Primary and Nursery School, we use the 'Power of Reading' as the basis for our English Curriculum.  This is a text-based approach to English, where the children use high-quality texts with challenging vocabulary and interesting themes to engage them with writing.  Through a text, children will experience a range of different learning styles such as conscience alley, role on the wall, drama, hot-seating and literature circles.  This will enable them to write in a range of genres - both fiction, non-fiction and poetry.  It also promotes a love of literature because it helps children to develop empathy, inference and a deeper understanding of  authorial intent and language choice.

Below, you can access a document to show the texts and writing outcomes for each year group this academic year.

Our staff are trained to use the Sounds Write methods throughout the school for teaching phonics.

Sounds Write is a highly structured, multi-sensory, incremental and code-oriented, instructional approach to teaching children to read and spell. The programme provides lessons that are clearly structured and easy to follow within a systematic, synthetic phonics programme. It teaches all key elements of conceptual understanding, factual knowledge, and the three essential skills of blending, segmenting and phoneme manipulation necessary for learning to read and spell and it does so on a daily basis until all children achieve the automaticity that underlies the fluency of every successful reader. Sounds-Write is acknowledged by the DfE as meeting ALL its criteria for an effective phonics teaching programme.

At Westcourt Primary & Nursery School we use the Accelerated Reader (AR) Programme.  Since the introduction of Accelerated Reader in 2013, the children have been working very hard to achieve 80% or above in their quizzes. Individual targets are set for the children at the start of each term with rewards being awarded to those who meet them.  In addition to this, the children are working their way through the 'Reading Certification Levels', which go from Ready Reader to Honours Reader.

We are working on becoming Masterclass.  This involves a class having at least 90% of children achieving an average of 85% on their quizzes for a minimum of 25 weeks.  We have seen a massive improvement already this year and are hopeful to have achieved the status of Masterclass for at least one of our year groups by the end of the academic year.

Children are able to access AR during their Guided Reading sessions and during daily Accelerated Reading time.  

All our reading books, both fiction and non-fiction are banded (0.5 to 12.0) and assessment of children's understanding gives a range of levels from which the children can select their chosen books.

Parents can keep up-to-date with their children's reading progress by accessing Accelerated Reader from the link below.  (Please note that quizzes cannot be taken at home).

Maths

At Westcourt Primary and Nursey School, we use the ‘White Rose’ mathematical planning as the basis of our maths Curriculum, which is supplemented with resources from classroom secrets. Each mathematical concept is broken down into small steps to ensure the children’s understanding. During each lesson the children will use a variety of mathematical techniques such as using equipment, drawing pictures and using number sentences.  Calculations will be taught following the calculation policy.

Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly will be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material will consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on.

A link to all year group planning is linked below

Maths resources for teachers | White Rose Maths

At Westcourt Primary and Nursery school we use Times Tables Rock Stars (ttrockstars.com) programme to aid the fast recall of times table facts. The children are rewarded for speed or accuracy whist recalling the facts. All timetable facts (up to 12 x 12) should be learnt by the end of Year 4.  In Year 1 and 2 we also use Numbots (play.numbots.com) to help the children add and subtract numbers. Both websites can be accessed at home using the internet and is set as homework.

SMSC (Social, Moral, Spritual, Cultural)

At Westcourt Primary & Nursery School we recognise that the personal development of pupils (socially, morally, spiritually, culturally) plays a significant role in their ability to learn and achieve.  

We therefore aim to provide an education that provides pupils with opportunities to explore and develop:

• their own values and beliefs;
• spiritual awareness;
• high standards of personal behaviour;
• a positive, caring attitude towards other people;
• an understanding of their social and cultural traditions, and
• an appreciation of the diversity and richness of the cultures.

These are promoted through our Religious Education assemblies, Sex and Relationship education, British Values and Personal, Social, Health Education (PSHE) provisions.

Our PSHE is now delivered via 'JIGSAW' - a provision from Nursery to Year 6.

Collective Worship

Each pupil must take part in a daily act of collective worship unless they have been withdrawn by their parents.

Academies without a religious designation must provide collective worship that is wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character. A school can reflect the religious backgrounds represented in its community, as long as the majority of provision is broadly Christian.

The right to withdraw from religious education and/or collective worship

Parents have the right to withdraw their children from religious education and/or collective worship.

Please contact the school if you wish to discuss this. 

Curriculum Accessibility

Our curriculum is designed to ensure that every child can experience, learn and achieve whatever their ability, age, disability, gender, race, religion or culture. Parents are encouraged to discuss any concerns they might have in relation to the above with their child’s class teacher in the first instance. Every effort will be made to adapt how we offer aspects of our curriculum if necessary. We are sensitive to children’s protected characteristics and also make every effort to ensure that all school resources reflect our commitment to equal opportunities for all.