Dunnington Church of England Primary SchoolOur SchoolOur Curriculum

Our Curriculum

Whilst high levels of academic achievement are expected, we are concerned with all aspects of children’s development. It is our intention to provide, within a caring environment, a wide range of balanced learning opportunities which develop and extend the subject skills, key skills, thinking skills and achievements of all our children – a curriculum for the 21st century – which will help our pupils to grow up to be knowledgeable, independent, adaptable and responsible people and prepare them for a world in which the only constant is change.Dunnington CE Primary Curriculum Policy

Details of our approach to the curriculum can be found in the Curriculum Policy on our Policies & Documents page where you will also find our PSHE Policy which includes Relationships, Health and Sex Education.

Our staff carefully plan to ensure both curriculum coverage and progression in children’s learning and the curriculum overview of all subjects for each year can be found in the newsletters and curriculum overviews on our classroom pages. Parents and carers are, of course, always very welcome to ask us in school if you want to find out more about what your child is learning.

Phonics & Reading

We follow the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ systematic synthetic phonics programme for both phonics and reading, and we use Collins Big Cat books.

  • You can find out full Reading Policy on the Policies & Documents page.
  • Click here for the information letter sent to parents and carers with more information about the Little Wandle programme.
  • We also held a parent information session to explain the new scheme, and you can see the presentation from this here.

We start teaching daily phonics in Reception and follow the Little Wandle progression throughout both Reception and Year 1, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.  We also timetable extra phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or KS2 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check, in order that the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen.  

In Reception and Year 1, we teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These focus on decoding, prosody and comprehension and are taught to small groups of children using books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge. The decodable reading practice book is then shared with home to ensure success is shared with the family. ‘Sharing Story’ books also go home weekly in Reception and KS1 for parents to share and read to their children to encourage reading for pleasure.

Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.OECD 2002

KS2 children are encouraged through reading and writing, to develop their powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness.

Want to find out more?

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You can find out more about the Early Years Foundation Stage, the EYFS Statutory Framework, and the National Curriculum for Key Stages 1 and 2, which includes the programmes of study for all subjects, on the GOV.uk website.

For information about how we make our curriculum accessible to those with disabilities or special educational needs, please see our SEND Report, together with our Accessibility Plan, SEN Policy and Single Equalities Policy which can all be found on the Policies & Documents page.