Curriculum Page 4

 Curriculum

Music

The school encourages participation in a variety of musical activities, from singing tomaking music with percussion instruments. Children aged 6-7 years have lessons with the recorder. Private guitar and recorder lessons are available during the school day.

Religious themes are planned for each half term, according to the school's Religious Education Policy. The school holds a daily act of worship for all children in the school, which is broadly Christian in character, as required by the 1998 Education Reform Act. Assemblies are led by the Headteacher and other members of staff. The local clergy and other members of the community are sometimes invited to lead a morning assembly. In the assemblies we explore themes such as sharing, caring, 'belonging', as well as multicultural themes such as Christmas, Rosh Hashanah and Divali.

Twice a year each class prepares a class assembly performed in front of the whole school and parents. The assembly is followed by a coffee morning, providing an opportunity for parents to get to know each other.

Under Section 25 of the 1944 Education Act, parents have the right to withdraw a child from any religious education lesson or assembly. The Headteacher must be informed in advance so that extra supervision can be arranged.

Personal, Social and Health Education/Citizenship

Health Education is taught on a cross-curricular basis centred on topics such as safety, dental care, hygiene and drugs education. The children are carefully made aware of their own personal and social development, including positive attitudes towards healthy living. The children are encouraged to develop an independent attitude towards their own health and well being. For Citizenship, time is given during Assembly and circle times for discussion on the values of being involved in our school and local community.

The infant and nursery school curriculum is crucial to the children's development of positive attitudes towards all members of society and the development of self-worth. The school observes the equal opportunity principals required by the 1989 Children's Act:

"People working with young children should value and respect the different racial origins, religions, cultures and languages in a multi-racial society, so that each child is valued as an individual without racial or gender stereotyping."

Included within the school curriculum are topics centred on other cultures, religions and languages. The school has a comprehensive range of multi-cultural resources including reading books, reference books, costumes, carvings, pots and religious artefacts.

Sex Education is not formally taught but within certain areas of the curriculum, notably science and health education, there will be some discussion of growth from birth to adulthood in the context of family life. Teachers may need, from time-to-time, to deal with questions arising from such discussions. These will be dealt with having regard for the maturity of the children.

The children are given literacy and numeracy targets from the Reception class onwards which might include learning letter sounds, names, key words or number rules. The children may also receive further targets which will highlight a specific area of learning that a child needs to concentrate on and develop.

Targets for learning and development will also be indicated on the children's reports and identified by the children on their end of term and end of year evaluations.

Homework

Our children are encouraged to complete their set homework each evening. Homework includes spellings, reading activities, key word recognition and phonic recognition. Numeracy homework consists of practical, shared number activities. Children are also required to research into the topics being studied in the classroom.