‘An intelligent heart acquires knowledge and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.’ Proverbs 18:15

Intent: What do we want children to learn?

Farncombe C of E Infant School is a safe, inclusive and welcoming place where everyone can flourish. Our nurturing and child-centred approach to providing high quality education for all is a strength of our school. This is underpinned by our mission statement of Inspiration, Imagination, Individuality. We strive to inspire children, through literature, music and the appreciation of God’s wonderful world.

Our curriculum is devised to develop children’s imaginations and to allow them to begin to grow their individual talents and passions. We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum (2021) and the National Curriculum (2014). Subject leaders have created plans which will enable children to progressively develop the skills, techniques, vocabulary and knowledge to prepare themselves for the next stage in their education and also to play a productive and meaningful part in 21st century life.

Implementation: How do we teach?

We pride ourselves on being an open, friendly and approachable school. Our vision of ‘Let All You do be Done in Love’ is a helpful reminder of the need to differentiate, tailor and support learning, so that all children can achieve. Where possible, classes are split into small groups for tasks and experiences, so that all children can benefit from good levels of adult attention. This also enables us to effectively deploy our staff, with everyone in school having a clear role in promoting achievement.

Our school rules and weekly celebration assemblies clearly outline our expectations and pathways to achievement. These frequent examples of success are displayed in school.

In 2021 the curriculum was refreshed and improved to allow for more frequent but less onerous assessment in Literacy and Maths. Alongside the use of high quality programs such as Talk for Writing and Jigsaw PSHE, teachers have the trust and autonomy to make their own decisions on what is best for their own class context. This opportunity for creativity and clear expression of trust leads to innovative and enthusiastic teaching which benefits all children.

Although we consider the whole curriculum to be important, we have a particular focus on Literacy, with the headteacher providing weekly storytimes as a clear indication of the importance of books. We also spend time in each year focusing on a book week to promote love of reading. All children are taken on a weekly basis to the school library, where enthusiastic librarians recommend next reads and further promote reading for pleasure.

Impact: How do we know how much the children have learned?

We know our children learn well, as our performance data at the end of Year 2 demonstrates this. The headteacher tracks a small number of pupils carefully through school to create case studies and these show the effectiveness of varying interventions, experiences and support given. Governors visit regularly to monitor teaching, learning and behaviour; these visits are always discussed at FGB and frequently lead to an improvement in provision. Subject leaders also monitor learning through observations and discussions to ensure learning is sequential and progress excellent.

Individual subjects were all reviewed in Autumn 2021 and Spring 2022, to further improve the progression and over-teaching of key skills to enable all children to recall and embed key information. Please see specific subject pages for details.

Link to Vision and Values: Hope, Endurance. Love Yourself.