Learning takes place in a wide range of ways at St. Margaret’s, both in and out of the classroom. Our curriculum ensures excellent coverage of the National Curriculum (Years 1-6) and Foundation Stage Early Years Curriculum (Reception Children).  We have fully embraced the higher expectations set out in both curriculums and have devised our own units of work for each subject area so that we can ensure a sound progression of learning.

We also have a core team of specialist teachers who are passionate about their curriculum area; these teachers work with different groups of children each year. Our team includes PE, music, art and computing specialists and we make excellent use of our on site forest school, art hut, virtual reality headsets, robotics equipment and 3D printing facilities.

Our pupils frequently go on educational visits to a wide range of places; they regularly visit art galleries and museums as well as local places of interests and we regularly invite and host visitors such as authors, theatre companies and other professionals to our school to provide an additional layer to our pupils’ experiences and give breadth to learning. This is something we are looking forward to reinstating as soon as government restrictions ease and it is safe to do so again.

Our curriculum  has been designed and developed to excite, engage and empower all learners by providing a rich and stimulating education that meets the needs of all children through relevant and purposeful content and meaningful experiences and enables all of our children to develop as independent, confident and successful learners, with enquiring minds, a life-long love of learning and a thoughtful and considerate approach to life.

Our Reception pupils learn both indoors and outdoors, experiencing a range of adult led and child initiated activities.  We value and incorporate the children’s interests as they develop.  As children approach their final half term of reception, they start to prepare for their transition to year 1 and begin to experience key stage 1 learning.  In years 1-6, we ensure that this ‘active’ and ‘engaging’ learning continues, with teachers maximising opportunities for talk time, active, visual, audio learning and the use of the outdoors.  At all times, we focus on learning being challenging, engaging and enjoyable.

KS1 Reading & Phonics Scheme Information

In Key Stage 1, we use RML and Benchmark to assess and support children in their reading.

For Key Stage 1 phonics, we use a phonics screening test to assess our children on their understanding of phonics.