Curriculum
The Springside Curriculum
Springside provides a broad and balanced curriculum that prepares children for life in a multi-cultural society.
Children learn to embrace the diversity of their fully inclusive community.
This includes children with different abilities and needs, along with children from different cultural backgrounds.
The school develops strong social and emotional relationships and children learn to support each other in a cooperative way. Kagan structures are used to develop these cooperative skills.
School recognises the requirements of children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs and helps them cope with the challenges of daily life.
Year 1 and 2 use a two-year rolling Cycle so that the classes can work closely together.
If you wish to know more about our School Curriculum, please contact Mr. Connor via the school office: 016176423498
Subject Documentation
Children in Early Years exploring their environment.
Studying Pond Life in the School’s Pond
Around the camp fire and sawing- learning with Communitree about the environment.
Playtime and Holcombe Hill.
Children learn from the variety of cultural backgrounds present in the school and learn to respect the cultural and religious diversity of the local area and of Britain as a whole. Parents are encouraged to work with the school in supporting their children’s learning and to share their own knowledge and first hand experiences with classes or groups of children when appropriate.
We aim to develop independent learners who can confidently express their opinions whilst showing respect to the views of others. Pupils are taught to be adaptable, but also to be critical thinkers.
Children are helped to become resilient when pursuing their own learning. They are set goals to achieve and we have high expectations in all areas of the curriculum. They are expected to be active learners and we give every opportunity for children to take ownership of their learning and meet ever greater challenges. In some lessons children are encouraged to choose the level of challenge they are ready for. Open challenges help children demonstrate mastery of their learning and deepens their understanding.
As children move through the school they have the opportunity to take on more responsibility. They help, and become role models, for younger children. For example play leaders support younger children at lunchtime, peer mediators help children solve their own disputes and prefects represent the school with the outside community.
The curriculum is broad, balanced and deep. It is underpinned by our six core values.
Our Values Tree
The school makes use of its fabulous setting and the mix of rural and urban environments to engage pupils and inspire them. Children are exposed to a wide range of experiences, both within and outside the classroom. This helps to raise their aspirations and deepen their understanding of the world around them. Children are given many opportunities to further learning beyond the school timetable in a variety of clubs. A strong emphasis is put on being active and children learn how to keep fit and healthy. Regular exercise is included in the school day and beyond. For example, children take part in the Daily Mile and are encouraged to walk to school. All pupils have the opportunity to join different sporting clubs and can challenge themselves in competition against other schools. Children regularly perform to audiences in drama and music.
Phonics
From January 2022, Springside have adopted the approved SSP scheme from Little Wandle Letters and Sounds: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/
"Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised is a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP) developed for schools by schools. Based on the original Letters and Sounds, but extensively revised to provide a complete teaching programme meeting all the expectations of the National Curriculum, the Ofsted Deep Dive into reading and preparing your children to go beyond the expectations of the Phonics Screening Check."
At the end of Year 1 each child takes the 'Phonics Screening Check'. This is meant to show how well a child can use the phonics skills they’ve learned up to the end of Year 1, and to identify students who need extra phonics help. The Department for Education defines the checks as “short, light-touch assessments” that take about four to nine minutes to complete.
The checks consist of 40 words and non-words that each child will be asked to read one-on-one with a teacher. Non-words (or nonsense words, or pseudo words) are a collection of letters that will follow phonics rules that have been taught, but don’t mean anything – children will need to read these with the correct sounds to show that they understand the phonics rules behind them.
The display showing some of the countries represented by children at Springside.
Banner made by the children working with the Traveller Education service.
A priority is given to expanding the children’s vocabulary in all areas of learning. This enables them to talk confidently about their learning and make links between new knowledge and what they previously knew or had experienced. Using high quality challenging texts at the centre of our curriculum, we encourage depth of writing across the curriculum.