At Micklands Primary School, our pupils, families, staff and governors share one vision: to be even better tomorrow than we are today.

We believe that an enjoyment of learning and a desire for knowledge and expertise are the foundation of education. Around the school, there are places of interest, challenge, wonder and reflection; all of which create a stimulating environment to inspire and enthuse.

Our curriculum is rooted in a progressive framework, aiming to cultivate a structured and dynamic learning journey for every child. We strive to provide a cohesive and scaffolded learning experience, ensuring that each stage equips children with the necessary tools to confidently advance to higher levels of understanding and achievement.

We are committed to fostering a learning environment that encourages critical thinking, creativity, and adaptability.

Embracing a holistic approach, we offer outdoor learning experiences to enrich students’ education. Through hands-on exploration in natural settings, we aim to instil a deep connection with the environment, promoting environmental stewardship and a sense of responsibility.

We aim to empower students with the skills and knowledge needed to thrive academically, socially, and ethically in a rapidly changing world.

The following links provide information on the curriculum that we offer in each year.

Our progression documents show you how the children will build on their knowledge and skills in each subject in each year group:

Our curriculum fully covers the aims and objectives of the National Curriculum:

Further documents related to our curriculum:

If you require any additional information about the school curriculum, please contact the school office on admin@micklands.reading.sch.uk

Phonics

Phonics sessions are taught daily at Micklands Primary School from the beginning of Foundation Stage to the end of Year 2 and into KS2 as required to ensure that all children can read and spell phonetically. We follow the Read, Write, Inc scheme of work throughout the school.

Phonics sessions are structured to build on previous learning and introduce new phonics skills and subject knowledge. Sessions often follow the revisit/review, teach, practise and apply model. Sessions are planned to include opportunities for development of speaking and listening, reading and writing.

Each June, all children in Year 1 undertake a National Phonics Screening Check. This check consists of 40 words (20 real words and 20 pseudo words) which all children will be asked to read. The focus of this check is to see if pupils can decode a range of words which they have not seen before.

Reading

At Micklands School we encourage a love of books and reading. We provide the children with opportunities to enjoy and share books with others.

We follow the Literary Curriculum scheme of work and use a wide range of high-quality reading material in our teaching. We provide the pupils with a language rich environment enabling pupils to access reading of different types on a daily basis. Each classroom has an inviting reading area with a wide range of reading materials to support all reading abilities.

Teachers model reading strategies during reading sessions, whilst children have the opportunity to develop reading strategies and to discuss texts in smaller group sessions. Independent reading provides time for assessment and 1:1 teaching. Daily discreet phonics lessons in FS and KS1 enable children to decode efficiently. This is continued into KS2 where necessary.

Teaching assistants support reading activities to ensure that children have more frequent opportunities to read with adults.

We support children who find reading challenging, through Reading Recovery, Better Reading Partners (TAs), Reading Buddies and by training parents who come in to help to be reading coaches.

As a school we have arranged exciting and rewarding activities in school to promote the pleasure and knowledge that can be gained from books, for example we have enjoyed a Roald Dahl Day, celebrated World Book Day, had visits from published authors and performances by professional theatre groups to illustrate stories.

All children that are in receipt of pupil premium funding are able to choose, take home and keep several books each year that they are at Micklands. They can choose from a selection of books from the Book Trust’s top 100 books of all time. They are then theirs to keep forever. We hope that this will encourage them to read at home and love reading.

Information is given on how to support their child in reading at curriculum workshops, parent evenings and also in curriculum letters.

We still encourage all children to share a book at home with their grown-ups. We believe that this not only helps to develop inferential skills, but also supports a lifelong love of reading. Throughout Key Stage 2, children are encouraged to become more independent in recording what they have read in their reading journals.

We recognise the value of adults (both in school and at home) reading aloud to children, in order to improve their grasp of story language, enthuse them with a love of books and inspire them as writers.

Writing

We use the The Literary Curriculum to support the teaching and learning of writing at Micklands.

The Literary Curriculum is a complete, book-based approach to the writing curriculum. The Teach Through a Text approach uses a consistent, cohesive approach to pedagogy across the school. The Literary Curriculum immerses children in a literary world, creating strong levels of engagement to provide meaningful and authentic contexts for learning.

Children become skilled writers and acquire an authorial style as they encounter a wide-range of significant authors and a variety of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

Maths

At Micklands, we follow the White Rose Scheme of Work for Maths in all year groups. This scheme focuses on ensuring that children have a very strong understanding on the basics of mathematics. This allows them to then be fluent and confident mathematicians as they grow older.

Overviews of the children’s learning in each year group can be found on the White Rose Maths website. Here you will also find lots of information that you can use to support your child at home.