Curriculum Vision: Our Intent
At Chidham, we believe that an ambitious, innovative and inspirational curriculum, will lead to a love of learning and exceptional pupil outcomes. With Jesus at the heart, we provide a broad and engaging curriculum, one that is based around rich experiential opportunities that promote deeper learning; a curriculum that develops knowledge and skills towards clear end points. We understand the importance of reading as a key to unlocking other areas of the curriculum, therefore developing a love for reading from the earliest stage, is central to all that we do.
Our children are valued as unique members of God’s family, and we nurture our children through spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Educating our children about mental and physical health is important to us and we encourage a growth-mindset in all of our children and staff. We have high expectations and aspirations for all children, including disadvantaged children and those with SEND, equipping them with the knowledge and cultural capital, so that children are prepared for the next stage of their life.
The joy of learning is embedded in our culture at Chidham, and as a family, we celebrate and share this with the local community wherever possible.
Thanks largely to our curriculum offer, we are proud that our children leave our school as confident, knowledgeable, well-rounded individuals.
Every child is unique and they come to school having had a wide range of different experiences throughout their early years. We value and build upon the work done by parents and other adults during these early stages.
Children learn at different rates, and have differing needs. It is because of this that we adopt a range of teaching styles to match each child’s learning as closely as we possibly can. This may involve working alone, in an ability group, or as part of the whole class. All our learning is planned to be rigorous, child centred and thought provoking to engage the children.
Our curriculum is delivered through a 1 year cycle of half termly projects, using the Cornerstones framework:
Reception
| Autumn Term | Spring Term | Summer Term |
| Exploring Autumn | Are we there yet? | Why do ladybirds have spots? |
| Year 1 | ||
| Autumn Term | Spring Term | Summer Term |
| Moon Zoom | Childhood and School Days | Dinosaur Planet |
| Year 2 | ||
| Autumn Term | Spring Term | Summer Term |
| Wriggle and Crawl | Towers, Tunnels and Turrets | The Scented Garden |
| Year 3 | ||
| Autumn Term | Spring Term | Summer Term |
| Tribal Tales | Tremors | Predator |
| Year 4 | ||
| Autumn Term | Spring Term | Summer Term |
| Blue Abyss | I am Warrior! | Traders and Raiders |
| Year 5 | ||
| Autumn Term | Spring Term | Summer Term |
| Sow, Grow and Farm | Stargazers | Beast Creator |
| Year 6 | ||
| Autumn Term | Spring Term | Summer Term |
| A Child’s War | Tomorrow’s World | Darwin’s Delights |
Children in the Reception year
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) covers children’s learning from birth to five years (to the end of the academic year in which your child has their fifth birthday). The Curriculum ensures that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children are ready for school and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life.
The Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum is an integrated, play and activity based curriculum, culminating on assessment against the Early Learning Goals and built around seven areas of learning, with the prime areas being: Communication Language, Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development. The specific areas that the prime areas are then explored are: Literacy, Maths, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design.
Play is the work of young children. Through carefully structured activities, they have the opportunity to ‘discover’ new concepts, practise ideas and give reality to their learning. The play is supported by structured whole class sessions on phonics, reading and mathematics. The children enjoy this balance of adult led and child led learning.
Throughout their year in Reception we compile a ‘Learning Journal’ for each child and track each child’s progress. At the end of the year we use all the information we have collected to complete each child’s Foundation stage profile.
Children in Years 1 and 2 follow the National Curriculum, Key Stage 1 for 5 -7 year olds.
Children in Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 follow the National Curriculum, Key Stage 2 for 7-11 year olds.
The National Curriculum at KS1 and 2 includes:
• English, Mathematics, Science and ICT
• History, Geography, Art, Music, Physical Education, Design Technology and Language (French and Spanish)
• Religious Education in accordance with the West Sussex Agreed Syllabus
• Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education
At the end of Key Stage 1 and 2 there are statutory assessments in English and Mathematics. In Year 4 there is a statutory assessment in times tables. At the end of Year 1 there is a statutory assessment in phonics.
For further information, please do not hesitate to contact the school.