Curriculum

Intent Statement for EYFS Reception Class 

At Birchwood Avenue Primary School, our intent for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is to provide a nurturing and engaging environment that embodies our ethos of "Educating Hearts and Minds." We aim to cultivate happy, confident pupils who are well-supported in their learning journey, fostering both academic and personal growth.
Key Components of Our Intent:

•    Holistic Development: We are dedicated to a whole-child education that promotes emotional, social, and cognitive development. Our curriculum is designed to nurture confident, free-thinking individuals prepared to explore their potential.

•    Safe and Stimulating Environment: We provide a safe, healthy, and joyful learning environment, including a rich outdoor area with exciting resources. These include a music and mark-making shed, bikes, a climbing frame and tunnel, that fosters physical development, coordination, and social skills, and a mud kitchen for investigative play; these all encourage exploration and active learning.

•    Values-Driven Education: Our teaching is guided by the Birchwood Triangle values of Kindness, Respect, and Hard Work. These principles foster a supportive community where every pupil feels valued and respected.

•    Lifelong Learning Skills: We focus on developing the 'Birchwood Avenue Superpowers': Empathy, Resilience, Collaboration, Reflection, Curiosity, and Resourcefulness. These skills are integral to our approach, equipping pupils with the tools necessary for lifelong learning.

•    Nurturing a Love of Learning: Our ambition is to instil a passion for learning that inspires pupils to engage with their environment and pursue knowledge actively. We provide diverse experiences that promote curiosity and creativity.
Through this intentional approach, we aim to ensure that every child in our Reception class not only achieves their potential but also develops the essential skills and values needed for future success.
 

The children are being creative, recreating the story ‘Jack and the bean stalk’     

The children were showing how to make number 6 using the boats, saying the number sentence 5+1=6.

The Reception class went on a local walk to the post office, where the children posted their own letter.                          

Today in English the children listened to the story 'The Three Little Pigs' and built the house of bricks.

HOME LEARNING

Dear Parents, 
Please use your Tapestry logins to access the children's Home Learning.
http://www.tapestryjournal.com
 

Useful Links:

https://www.bitesize.co.uk

https://www.twinkl.co.uk

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk

https://gonoodle.com

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/

Birchwood Avenue Curriculum Statement

At Birchwood Avenue, we aim to encapsulate our ethos of ‘Educating Hearts and Minds’ in all that we do, to create pupils who are happy, work collaboratively and are well supported to reach their full potential. Our skills and knowledge-based curriculum is designed to ensure that we provide experiential learning, which broadens the horizons of our pupils and facilitates them all to become global citizens in an ever changing world. 

Our curriculum aims to provide inclusive opportunities for all pupils, regardless of need or background. Through the breadth of our curriculum programme, we inspire, engage and excite our learning community with a range of real life experiences that provide them with context to their learning. 

The ‘Birchwood Avenue Superpowers’ are central to us developing a set of transferable skills and values that pupils apply both in and out of their learning journey. Over time, these superpowers support pupils in becoming confident learners and, most importantly, equip them with the necessary skills to be lifelong learners. We ensure that our children are prepared to take an active role in modern British society and the changing world, as tomorrow’s leaders. 

We are ambitious for all children and the curriculum choices that we have made reflect this.  Our curriculum provision ensures children know more and remember more. To help us to secure this, we have reading at the heart of our provision. We use books to not only inspire our children, but to help our children gain a better insight into the world in which they live and are part of.  Using books to complement our curriculum, they allow better access to challenging concepts and theories across all subjects, as well as encouraging our children to develop and cultivate their own theories and queries – we want our children to be curious learners with educated hearts and minds. 

Schemes to enhance the Birchwood Avenue Curriculum

To enable us to fulfil the National Curriculum requirements, as a school we have invested in the following schemes to help us tailor our curriculum to the needs of our community:

• English – HFL English Plans, CLPE and Literacy Shed Plus

• Maths – HFL Essential Maths, Mastering Number for Fluency and TT Rockstars for timestables.

• Science, Geography and History – Ark Mastery Curriculum

• PSHE - Jigsaw

• Computing – Teach Computing and Project Evolve

• RE – Herts Syllabus, supported by Kapow

• Art & Design and Design & Technology - Kapow

• Spanish – iLanguages

Ofsted June 2023:

Leaders have ensured that the new curriculum is well sequenced for all subjects. Detailed plans support teachers in knowing what to teach and how to develop pupils’ learning over time. The ambition of the curriculum has raised the expectations of what pupils can achieve. Pupils are now learning and remembering much more than previously.