Curriculum Statement – Cannon Lane Primary School

Curriculum - Music

At Cannon Lane Primary School we help each child to achieve their very best. We aim to create a positive and secure environment in which children can be happy, safe, and successful. We place great emphasis on mutual respect and consideration for others. We encourage children to be reflective, resilient, responsible and resourceful learners.

We provide a curriculum that is broad and balanced and one that is relevant and interesting for the children. We believe that children should be inspired by what they are learning and understand how and why this is relevant to them and to their lives in the future.

At Cannon Lane School, our curriculum is designed to:

challenge all children
encourage children to ask questions and to develop higher order thinking skills
be fully inclusive and to celebrate diversity
motivate children and enable them to become independent learners
encourage children to take risks and to see mistakes as learning opportunities
enable children to work together and to learn from each other
nurture healthy, caring and respectful relationships
help children to understand how to keep themselves safe
emphasise important values such as friendship, resilience and compassion
teach children about the British Values of democracy, rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect

Running through our curriculum is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We are a Rights Respecting School and our pupil ambassadors play an important role in developing this ethos. ‘Every child has the right to an education’ (Article 28) and the curriculum we provide aims to ‘develop every child’s personality, talents and abilities to the full (Article 29).As far as possible, we adopt a cross-curricular approach to learning. We employ specialist teachers for music, art and physical education and staff work together to establish meaningful links across the curriculum.
Throughout the school year visitors are welcomed into school to bring the curriculum to life. Children are encouraged to dress up and experience life as a Roman soldier, an Ancient Egyptian or as a World War II evacuee. Each term children take part in educational visits to further develop their knowledge and understanding of the topics covered in school.Subject Leaders organise ‘themed weeks’ which enable children to immerse themselves fully in their learning. Class assemblies provide an excellent opportunity for children to share their knowledge and enthusiasm with their parents, their peers and their siblings.Please see our Curriculum Map (for each year group) which identifies the topics that children learn each term by subject area.

Download our Curriculum Statement – November 2017 >>

Talk is a key part of our curricular experiences and we encourage children to use language and communication in a purposeful and clear way, appropriate for different occasions and which invites responsive listening. Talk partners are a part of our lessons and children practise their speaking and listening skills in lessons as well as through drama and role play. Children have many opportunities to listen carefully to stories and discussion and to respond in different ways. We foster a culture of respecting and responding to the views of other children and adults in an appropriate way.

We teach phonics using the Letters and Sounds scheme of work. Phonics teaching starts in Reception and continues until the children are secure in applying their skills to reading. Each day the children are taught a different phonics skill, letter sound or blend and they take part in different activities to practice and consolidate the sounds they have learnt.

All children are encouraged to write creatively and in a variety of different genres, through differentiated teaching. Spelling, punctuation and grammar are taught discretely during all writing opportunities. In Reception and KS1 creative writing and shared writing opportunities are promoted whereby children become keen emergent writers.

In Key Stage 2, writing is more formalised whereby children’s opportunities for extended writing are planned as a ‘Big Write’. Samples of these extended writing outcomes are then used for assessment purposes. At Cannon Lane we endeavour to create fluent and confident readers. We understand that the teaching of reading needs to be delivered in a consistent and rigorous way and we balance our teaching of reading to include explicit teaching of both decoding and comprehension through our delivery of ‘Big Reading.’ Children are taught specific reading skills during weekly, whole class ‘Big Reading’ lessons. These sessions are structured consistently throughout the school in order to teach the children the five key skills of reading (decoding, retrieving, exploring, analysing and deducing and inferring.) We use a wide variety of banded reading books throughout the school. Each reading scheme comprises of both fiction and non-fiction texts, as well as poetry. Once the reading scheme is completed, pupils are encouraged to read novels of interest at their level. Our libraries and class reading corners have a wide range of books that are available for the children to read in school and at home.

We endeavour to make mathematics fun, creative and engaging at Cannon Lane; our children learn to become logical and analytical problem solvers with excellent conceptual understanding, as well as application skills. Children feel secure enough to take risks, embrace challenges and develop reasoning skills; this enables them to navigate in the modern world and see the importance and power of mathematics. Our mathematicians successfully and proudly represent the school at many maths challenges held at our local schools.

At Cannon Lane we nurture children’s scientific curiosity and inspire them through a rich curriculum which develops their appreciation and passion for the subject. Children improve their scientific skills through challenging and creative lessons which involve working scientifically and understanding their importance in the real world. Science themed days and educational trips and workshops such as day trips to the Greenwich Observatory and palaeontology workshops enable children to further enrich their learning and love for science.

Children are encouraged to be creative in their work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences by drawing, painting, craft and design techniques ceramics and clay modelling in class and in our art studio. Children research and learn about great artists, craft makers and designers, and also understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.

Pupils learn to understand and apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science, including coding and data representation. They are taught to analyse problems in computational terms, and have opportunities for practical experiences of writing computer programs in order to solve problems. All pupils are carefully supported to be confident yet safe and responsible users of technology through e-safety lessons and workshops.

Our specialist music teachers provide each child with the opportunity to learn a musical instrument and to progress to the next level of musical excellence. Pupils perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians.

The school’s choir learn to sing and to use their voices, to create and compose music on their own and with others. Children understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notation.

R.E. is taught according to the Harrow Agreed Syllabus. This allows children to learn about the six major world religions. The use of special books, workshops, assemblies and trips to places of worship develop pupils’ understanding and respect for different faiths and cultures.

Download: The Harrow Agreed Syllabus

In the Early Years Foundation Stage and in Key Stage 1 we encourage children to listen and respond to games, songs, rhymes and familiar stories in different languages.

We ensure every child has the opportunity throughout Key Stage 2 to study a foreign language and develop their interest in the culture of other nations. In Key Stage 2 we teach French in Years 3 & 4 and Mandarin in Years 5 and 6. We have specialist teachers in both languages who deliver lessons to all our pupils.

Children enjoy learning history and geography, whereby exciting cross curricular links to other subjects and regular school excursions help inspire and engage them.

At Cannon Lane pupils learn about the environment, lives and lifestyles of familiar people in the recent past and about famous people and events in the more distant past, including those from British history.

Children actively study the local features and extend their learning outside their local area to other parts of the UK. Geographical skills such as: use of maps and coordinates, atlas work observations about the weather, climate and outdoor field work prepares children with a sense of empathy and responsibility towards their own environment.

There is a strong emphasis on physical education and promoting healthy lifestyles across the school. Children are taught to observe the conventions of fair play, honest competition and good sporting behaviour as individual participants, team members and spectators.

Children take part in games, gymnastics, dance and athletics using the indoor and outdoor environment where appropriate. Children currently swim in Year 4 and receive ‘top up swimming’ in Years 5 and 6 where possible (so that all children are able to swim at least 25 metres by the end of Key Stage 2).

Children also take part in a variety of after school sports clubs and have many opportunities to compete against other local schools.

A programme of SRE taught across the school provides accurate and age related information to all our pupils about the body, reproduction and sexual health. It also promotes the importance of building positive, respectful relationships and staying safe both on and offline.