This section is focused on the curriculum and provides an overview of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Framework and the National Curriculum offer for children in Years 1 to 6.
Core and Foundation Subjects
Our curriculum promotes ‘life in all its fullness’ through access to a high quality, broad and balanced curriculum that is enriched with enjoyable and engaging experiences. These experiences are carefully planned to support the development of knowledge, skills and enriched cultural capital. This will include the provision of an ambitious body of procedural and semantic knowledge to develop long term memory.
Our curriculum design is based on principles derived from evidence through cognitive science:
- Learning is most effective with spaced repetition.
- Retrieval of previously learnt content is frequent and regular, which increases both storage and retrieval strength.
In addition to the principles, we also understand that learning is invisible in the short term and that sustained mastery takes time.
Our content is subject specific. We make intra-curricular links to strengthen schema.
Continuous provision, in the form of daily routines, quizzing and starters to lessons, provides retrieval practice for previously learnt content.
The long term planning in the school sets out when and what component is taught for each curriculum subject to ensure full coverage. Foundation subjects are planned over a two-year cycle to accommodate mixed age group classes. The content is coherently planned to allow for a progressive, well-developed curriculum that builds on skills to develop strong procedural and semantic knowledge, providing a deeper, more sustainable understanding of the curriculum content where children are active in making connections to everyday life and the world they live in.
Our weekly timetable is bespoke for each class to provide full coverage of each subject whilst efficiently using curriculum time to retrieve previously taught knowledge and skills from long term memory. The school day itself has been revised to better match Curriculum 2014 and to assist in a creative yet balanced delivery of the curriculum subjects.
Curriculum Leads
As a federation, our staff lead subjects across both schools to develop their leadership skills.
| Staff Name | School | Role in School | Lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mrs B. Dawson | St. Michael's C of E Primary | Head of School English Hub Lead | DSL |
| Mr J. Paley | St. Michael's C of E Primary | Head of School | Curriculum Lead Maths Lead Music Lead PRSHE Lead Handwriting Lead Spanish Lead Safeguarding Team |
| Mrs H. Edney | St. Michael's C of E Primary | SENCO EYFS Lead Literacy Specialist | Art Lead DT Lead Safeguarding Team |
| Miss L. Hammond | St. Michael's C of E Primary | EYFS Class Teacher | Computing Lead PE Lead |
| Miss A. Alderson | St. Michael's C of E Primary | Year 1/2 Class Teacher | Art Lead (Shadowing) DT Lead (Shadowing) Handwriting (Shadowing) |
| Mr D. Warby | St. Michael's C of E Primary | Year 3/4 Class Teacher | Spanish (Shadowing) |
| Mrs N. Jemmerson | St. Michael's C of E Primary | Year 3/4 Class Teacher | Geography History |
| Mrs E. Urwin | St. Michael's C of E Primary | Year 5/6 Class Teacher | Music Lead (Shadowing) PRSHE Lead (Shadowing) |
| Mrs A. Moore | St. Michael's C of E Primary | Literacy Specialist | English Science R.E OPAL Forest School |
| Miss A. Banks | St. Michael's C of E Primary | HLTA | Groups OPAL Play Lead |
| Miss A. Willis | St. Michael's C of E Primary | Admin Manager | EVC |
Curriculum Topics
Please find below the two year cycle of topics your children will cover to ensure full coverage of the curriculum.
Cycle A
EYFS Yearly Curriculum Map
Year 1/2 Cycle A Curriculum Map
Year 3/4 Cycle A Curriculum Map
Year 5/6 Cycle A Curriculum Map
Cycle B
EYFS Yearly Curriculum Map
Year 1/2 Cycle B Curriculum Map
Year 3/4 Cycle B Curriculum Map
Year 5/6 Cycle B Curriculum Map
To find out more about our curriculum, please click here and follow the links to your child’s class page. Parents can check out our teacher’s half termly overviews on their class page. If you want any further information please get in touch with Mr J. Paley Head of School. If you e-mail the school on bishopmiddleham@durhamlearning.net
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
At St. Michael’s C of E Primary School we believe that inclusive education means providing all pupils with appropriate education and support alongside their peers. The curriculum is all the planned activities that the school organises in order to promote learning, personal growth and development. Further information can be found in the SEND Information Report.
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