Curriculum
Children will follow the National Curriculum, which is planned to provide all pupils with the opportunities to acquire a broad and balanced range of knowledge, skills and understanding, according to individual needs and experiences. Above all, we aim to develop children’s positive attitudes towards themselves as learners. The school supports and has fully implemented both the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies. The children are currently “set” for Numeracy.
The actual total teaching time, excluding acts of worship, breaks and registration times is 23 hours and 30 minutes per week. There are eight unstreamed classes, two in each year group. However during Literacy and Numeracy lessons Year 6 is divided into three teacher groups, so supporting these children even more fully for these crucial subjects.
All the National Curriculum subjects are taught.
These are:
Core subjects
- English
- Mathematics
- Science
- Information & Communication Technology
- Religious Education
Foundation subjects
- History
- Geography
- Music
- Design Technology
- Art
- PE
A variety of teaching methods is employed as appropriate to classes and individual needs. The Foundation subjects are mostly covered through topic based studies.
The curriculum is planned to take advantage of the resources within the school, for example, a computer suite and other technological equipment, musical instruments, art materials, construction apparatus, TV, video and cassette players.
We are extremely fortunate to have a computer suite which allows all the children in a class to be taught I.C.T. skills and expertise together for a minimum of one and quarter hours a week.
There are good indoor and outdoor facilities for PE and games, with a playing field on site. The hall has a brand new set of gymnastic equipment provided by the Friends of Abbey School. The children enjoy a wide range of activities. During the year children from Years 3 to 5 are taught swimming at the Leisure Centre in Daventry. We also take any Year 6 children who may need extra help with swimming.
Curriculum News - September 2007
Some of you will recall that last term Mrs Lee ran a number of sessions for parents on the “new” maths that we teach your children.
This year the school will continue to focus on maths and so from the beginning of September 2007 there will be some changes. In previous years we have “set” the children into ability groups in their year groups to help meet their needs more carefully. We intend this term to try setting the groups across the whole school so that they are taught in even smaller groups of similar ability.
Therefore some of the groups will have a mixture of different ages in them, but most importantly the teachers and teaching assistants will be able to teach to their ability and help them progress more quickly and easily.
We ran a short trial of this last term and felt that, despite a few small teething problems, it could provide us with a very effective way of helping your children not only progress well in maths , but actually enjoy it! Our survey of the children said:
129 enjoyed new system more than current one,
24 preferred the old system and
7 were undecided.
We will, of course, be meeting regularly to monitor the group’s membership and their progress. I will keep you informed as it develops, but if you have any questions or concerns please see your class teacher, Mrs. Lee or myself.
