Curriculum
Epping Upland’s Curriculum Design
At Epping Upland C of E Primary School, we provide a broad, balanced and enjoyable curriculum. Within our nurturing ethos we endeavour to enable all children to develop into confident and happy individuals who know that their opinions and choices are valued. Our well-planned cross-curricular approach comprises exciting termly topics and regular themed days (Free Fridays). To broaden and enrich their education, the children enjoy a variety of experiences outside the school environment, including sporting tournaments, visits to places of natural beauty, museums and theatres, which enhance their cultural capital. As a Church school, we have close links with All Saints Church Epping Upland; our visits there include school leadership of services.
We place great importance on our children’s mental health, well-being and happiness which is reflected in our curriculum. Every child’s contribution is valued and respected and our children understand that their voice will always be heard. We know that this holistic approach within our curriculum allows our children to become the very best that they can be.
Our curriculum is topic-based because we believe that children learn best when logical connections are made between different aspects of their work. Each year group has six termly topics or themes that can be taught across the curriculum over two years. The National Curriculum (2014) was used as the basis for planning each topic, with each year group teacher ensuring the appropriate and correct coverage is included. To ensure breadth and balance, each theme takes a different starting point, so that the long-term plan shows a good depth of coverage across all subject areas.
To ensure that any notable or important events or topics of interest are covered, there will be regular ‘Free Fridays’ when the class will be able to study a theme of its choice. Special religious days, newsworthy events or studies of particular people might be chosen as a way of keeping children up-to-date with contemporary issues.
At Epping Upland, we use a personalised learning approach that expects all children to reach or exceed national expectations, to fulfil their early promise and develop latent potential. The teacher’s priority is always to support and challenge children so that they can keep up with the pace of learning, make good rates of progress and be the best that they can be.
Because of the above, we can ensure that we deliver an ambitious curriculum which caters not only for the intellectual needs of every child, but the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and cultural needs too. We achieve the means that will increase the children’s understanding of the world about them, preparing them to live successfully in the 21st century.
To teach early reading skills, we use the ‘Bug Club’ phonics scheme. This starts in EYFS and is continued into Key Stage 1. We use this programme to deliver high quality phonic lessons daily, which are progressive throughout KS1. The scheme is designed as an accessible and inclusive programme which promotes whole class teaching. This scheme ensures that children are able to access a selection of fully decodable books matched to their phonics level.
We also use ‘colour book bands’ at KS1, which children move onto after successfully completing their phonic journey. The books are matched to children's age and reading ability. This is a natural progression as the ‘colour book bands’ are also provided by ‘Bug Club’.