Literacy
Literacy allows children to develop skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing. It enables children to express themselves creatively and imaginatively and to communicate effectively. Children learn to become enthusiastic and critical readers of stories, poetry and drama as well as non-fiction and media texts. They develop the ability to explore how language works, by looking for patterns, structures and origins. Armed with this knowledge children can choose and adapt what they say and write to many different situations.
Mathematics
Mathematics equips children with a uniquely powerful set of tools to understand and change the world. This includes logical reasoning, problem solving skills and the ability to think in abstract ways. Maths is vitally important in everyday life and a creative discipline. Children develop knowledge and understanding of mathematics through practical activity, exploration and discussion.
Art and design offers opportunities to:
- stimulate children’s creativity and imagination by providing visual, tactile and sensory experiences and a unique way of understanding and responding to the world;
- develop children’s understanding of colour, form, texture, pattern and their ability to use materials and processes to communicate ideas, feelings and meanings;
- explore with children ideas and meanings in the work of artists, craftspeople and designers, and help them learn about their different roles and about the functions of art, craft and design in their own lives and in different times and cultures;
- help children to learn how to make thoughtful judgements and aesthetic and practical decisions and become actively involved in shaping environments.
Design and technology offers opportunities for children to:
- develop their designing and making skills;
- develop knowledge and understanding;
- develop their capability to create high quality products through combining their designing and making skills with knowledge and understanding;
- nurture creativity and innovation through designing and making;
- explore values about and attitudes to the made world and how we live and work within it;
- develop an understanding of technological processes, products, and their manufacture, and their contribution to our society.
Geography teaching offers opportunities to:
- stimulate children’s interest in their surroundings and in the variety of human and physical conditions on the Earth’s surface;
- foster children’s sense of wonder at the beauty of the world around them;
- help children to develop an informed concern about the quality of the environment and the future of the human habitat; and
- thereby enhance children’s sense of responsibility for the care of the Earth and its people.
History teaching offers opportunities to:
- develop children’s sense of identity through learning about the development of Britain, Europe and the world;
- introduce children to what is involved in understanding and interpreting the past.
ICT should offer opportunities for children to:
- develop ICT capability, including their knowledge and understanding of the importance of information and of how to select and prepare it;
- develop their skills in using hardware and software to manipulate information in their processes of problem solving, recording and expressive work;
- develop their ability to apply their ICT capability and ICT to support their use of language and communication, and their learning in other areas;
- explore their attitudes towards ICT, its value for themselves, others and society, and their awareness of its advantages and limitations.
- develop their knowledge of e-safety and how use equipment and the internet appropriately.
Music offers the opportunities for children to:
- develop their understanding and appreciation of a wide range of different kinds of music, developing and extending their own interests and increasing their ability to make judgements of musical quality;
- acquire the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to make music, for example in community music-making, and, where appropriate, to follow a music-related career;
- develop skills, attitudes and attributes that can support learning in other subject areas and that are needed for life and work, for example listening skills, the ability to concentrate, creativity, intuition, aesthetic sensitivity, perseverance, self-confidence and sensitivity towards others.
PE offers opportunities for children to:
- become skilful and intelligent performers;
- acquire and develop skills, performing with increasing physical competence and confidence, in a range of physical activities and contexts;
- learn how to select and apply skills, tactics and compositional ideas to suit activities that need different approaches and ways of thinking;
- develop their ideas in a creative way;
- set targets for themselves and compete against others, individually and as team members;
- understand what it takes to persevere, succeed and acknowledge others’ success;
- respond to a variety of challenges in a range of physical contexts and environments;
- take the initiative, lead activity and focus on improving aspects of their own performance;
- discover their own aptitudes and preferences for different activities;
- make informed decisions about the importance of exercise in their lives;
- develop positive attitudes to participation in physical activity.
RE provides opportunities for children to:
- develop their knowledge and understanding of, and their ability to respond to, Christianity and the other principal religions represented in Great Britain;
- explore issues within and between faiths to help them understand and respect different religions, beliefs, values and traditions (including ethical life stories), and understand the influence of these on individuals, societies, communities and cultures;
- consider questions of meaning and purpose in life;
- learn about religious and ethical teaching, enabling them to make reasoned and informed judgements on religious and moral issues;
- develop their sense of identity and belonging, preparing them for life as citizens in a plural society;
- develop enquiry and response skills through the use of distinctive language, listening and empathy;
- reflect on, analyse and evaluate their beliefs, values and practices and communicate their responses.
RE does not seek to urge religious beliefs on children nor to compromise the integrity of their own beliefs by promoting one religion over another. It is not the same as collective worship, which has its own place within school life.
Science offers opportunities for children to:
- develop knowledge and understanding of important scientific ideas, processes and skills and relate these to everyday experiences;
- learn about ways of thinking and of finding out about and communicating ideas;
- explore values and attitudes through science.
Personal, social and health education (PSHE) and citizenship pupils learn about:
- Themselves as developing individuals and as members of their communities, building on their own experiences and on the early learning goals for personal, social and emotional development.
- They learn the basic rules and skills for keeping themselves healthy and safe and for behaving well.
- They have opportunities to show they can take some responsibility for themselves and their environment.
- They begin to learn about their own and other people’s feelings and become aware of the views, needs and rights of other children and older people. As members of a class and school community, they learn social skills such as how to share, take turns, play, help others, resolve simple arguments and resist bullying.
- They begin to take an active part in the life of their school and its neighbourhood.