Curriculum

Welcome to the Curriculum section of our website.

Here you can find information about the teaching and learning experiences offered at Ralph Butterfield Primary School.

We are very passionate about developing and implementing a curriculum that is interesting and fun and we seek to really 'hook' children into wanting to learn more. We want to inspire children to have a thirst for knowledge, an enthusiasm for developing existing skills, learning new skills and to have a genuine curiosity in the world around them, past, present and future. In this way, we hope to enable children to discover talents and interests that they will take into their future life with them. Teachers and Teaching Assistants strive to achieve the highest standards from the children, in order for them to be well prepared for the next stage in their education and their future careers.

We work to offer a curriculum that is designed to be as ‘hands on’, investigative and exciting as possible so that children are fully engaged with their learning. As part of our SDP, we are also developing our outdoor spaces to facilitate more outdoor learning opportunities. Curriculum development work is ensuring that our curriculum is cohesive and progressive, with knowledge and skills that are built upon year-on-year, but with enough flexibility to ensure that it remains relevant and stimulating for the needs and interests of specific cohorts. 

We are passionate about ensuring that children enjoy their learning through a curriculum that is accessible for all individuals; we know that pupils learn in different ways and we use a variety of teaching and learning strategies, including whole class teaching, group work and individual support. Children learn not just from their teachers, but from other adults, other children across the school and their peers. They learn by listening, questioning and doing, working both individually and collaboratively.

At Ralph Butterfield Primary School we understand the importance of our children knowing more, remembering more and doing more. With this in mind, we teach the children the knowledge they require, and build in opportunities for the retrieval of this knowledge and the chance to apply new skills during their learning. Below you will find our progressions of knowledge and skills for each of the subject areas taught in school. 

Throughout our curriculum, within daily teaching and learning, staff take every opportunity to support children with their personal development. This is highly important to us, particularly with the additionally challenging times children have experienced with circumstances around the pandemic. Children have regular opportunities to strengthen their resilience and develop understanding of, and respect for, diversity and inclusion, including in relation to the protected characteristics which are explicitly taught. The latter is being developed this year and is of priority on our SDP. We want our curriculum to ensure every child is well prepared for living their best life, being themselves and enjoying life in our diverse society.

In support of this, we also strive to give all of our children the opportunity to experience and take part in a range of events to help them develop their wider experiences of the world (cultural capital). These events change yearly and include such as visits to religious buildings, trips to the local theatre, residential visits, working with musicians and taking part in local sporting events (for example). We also look to engage with our local and wider communities, inviting visitors in to school so that our children can meet and interact with a diverse range of people. Covid-19 has limited these opportunities in the last year or so but children are now enjoying these experiences again.

As a school we follow the National Curriculum.  These can be viewed by clicking on the following links:  
EYFS - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework--2
Year 1 – Year 6 https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum.

We have a two-year rolling long term plan to ensure curriculum coverage for all children in our mixed age range classes. An example of our Year A and Year B long term plans can be seen by clicking on the 'curriculum long term plan' buttons below. These remain under review and will be updated regularly.

The school follows Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised systematic synthetic programme for the teaching of phonics and reading throughout the school. 

Anyone is welcome to email the school to ask for further information about our curriculum. If you are a parent/carer wanting to find out any more about our curriculum, you can also speak with your child's class teacher or, even better, please ask your child! You can also get a taste of our curriculum through taking a look at our Twitter feed.

Please click here to see our school Twitter account 

Please click here to view the school’s Accessibility Plan