Curriculum Information
Curriculum Maps 2022/23
On the Year Group Curriculum Overviews, you will find links to Knowledge Organisers detailing the key knowledge pupils will be taught within particular subject areas. Please take a look!
Computing Curriculum Overview.
Geography Curriculum Overview.
Subject knowledge and skills progression
Art Skills Progression Ladder.
Computing Skills Progression Ladder.
Geography Skills Progression Ladder.
History Skills Progression Ladder.
Maths Skills Progression Ladder.
MFL French Skills Progression Ladder.
Music Skills Progression Ladder.
Reading Skills Progression Ladder.
Protective Behaviour - Relationship & Sex Education (RSE)
Please find below copies of the letter and vocabulary that has been sent home to parents. There is a parent diary for all year groups - we will not be sending these home, however, if you would like a copy please speak to the class teacher or the school office
Relationship and Sex Education Letter.
Further details for lessons coming soon!
Reading
Most of us read without even thinking about it. It’s a skill we take for granted, yet one that is essential for being able to succeed in life. As a child grows up, being able to read well not only enables them to discover new facts and to learn at school, but also opens them up to a world of new ideas, stories and opportunities. We want all our children to leave Hinckley Parks Primary school with an ability to read which accompanies a desire to read.
Good reading involves a combination of word recognition and comprehension.
- Skilled word reading involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words.
- Good comprehension draws from linguistic knowledge (in particular of vocabulary and grammar) and on knowledge of the world. Comprehension skills develop through pupils’ experience of high-quality discussion…as well as from reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and nonfiction.
Research shows that learning to read - and to love to read - is directly linked to children's success at school and beyond. So how can you best support your child at home?
The Oxford Owl website provides great tips for supporting your child with reading and also has 250 free e-books for you to read with your child at home.
Essential Letters and Sounds
Essential Letters and Sounds
Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) is our chosen Phonics programme. The aim of ELS is 'Getting all children to read well, quickly'. It teaches children to read by identifying the phonemes (the smallest unit of sound) and graphemes (the written version of the sound) within words and using these to read words.
Children begin learning Phonics at the very beginning of Reception and it is explicitly taught every day during a dedicated slot on the timetable. Children are given the knowledge and the skills to then apply this independently. Throughout the day, children will use their growing Phonics knowledge to support them in other areas of the curriculum and will have many opportunities to practise their reading. This includes reading 1:1 with a member of staff, with a partner during paired reading and as a class.
Children continue daily Phonics lessons in Year 1 and further through the school to ensure all children become confident, fluent readers.
We follow the ELS progression and sequence. This allows our children to practise their existing phonic knowledge whilst building their understanding of the 'code' of our language GPCs (Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence). As a result, our children can tackle any unfamiliar words that they might discover.
Children experience the joy of books and language whilst rapidly acquiring the skills they need to become fluent independent readers and writers. ELS teaches relevant, useful and ambitious vocabulary to support each child's journey to becoming fluent and independent readers.
We begin by teaching the single letter sounds before moving to diagraphs 'sh' (two letters spelling one sound), trigraphs igh' (three letters spelling one sound) and quadgraphs 'eigh' (four letters spelling one sound).
We teach children to:
- Decode (read) by identifying each sound within a word and blending them together to read fluently
- Encode (write) by segmenting each sound to write words accurately.
The structure of ELS lessons allows children to know what is coming next, what they need to do, and how to achieve success. This makes it easier for children to learn the GPCs we are teaching (the alphabetic code) and how to apply this when reading.
ELS is designed on the principle that children should keep up' rather than 'catch up'. Since interventions are delivered within the lesson by the teacher, any child who is struggling with the new knowledge can be immediately targeted with appropriate support. Where further support is required, 1:1 interventions are used where needed. These interventions are short, specific and effective.
Supporting Reading at Home:
- Children will only read books that are entirely decodable, this means that they should be able to read these books as they already know the code contained within the book.
- We only use pure sounds when decoding words (no 'uh' after the sound)
- We want children to practise reading their book 4 times across the week working on these skills:
Decode-sounding out and blending to read the word.
Fluency-reading words with less obvious decoding.
Expression - using intonation and expression to bring the text to life!
We must use pure sounds when we are pronouncing the sounds and supporting children in reading words. If we mispronounce these sounds, we will make reading harder for our children. Please watch the videos below for how to accurately pronounce these sounds.
At the beginning of each academic year, in EYFS, we will hold an information session for parents and carers to find out more about what we do for Phonics. Please do join us.
More support for parents and carers can be found here:
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/essential-letters-and-sounds/
Spelling (KS2
At Hinckley Parks Primary school we use the Spelling Shed programme to support our teaching of spelling. The focus of the programme is on the teaching of spelling, which embraces knowledge of spelling conventions – patterns and rules; but integral to the teaching is the opportunity to promote the learning of spellings, including statutory words, common exceptions and personal spellings. KS2 classes participate in a 20 minute spelling lesson twice a week. Each pupil from Year 1 – Year 6 have their own individual logins to access fun and interactive games and resources which can be accessed in school and at home. Online assignments can be set alongside their weekly spelling homework that is tested the following week.
