Our Curriculum Statement of Intent

Our aim is to provide our children with an engaging, exciting and empowering curriculum that equips them with the knowledge and skills for today, tomorrow and beyond. 

At Thorpe Lea Primary School and Nursery, the curriculum is designed to recognise children’s prior learning and build upon this, allowing the children to develop interpersonal skills, build resilience and become creative, critical thinkers whilst promoting British Values.

Every child is recognised as a unique individual. We celebrate and welcome differences within our diverse school community. The ability to learn is underpinned by the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, concepts and values with a vision to prepare them for life beyond primary school. We provide enrichment opportunities to engage learning. We believe that childhood should be a happy, investigative and enquiring time in our lives, where there are no limits to curiosity and there is a thirst for new experiences and knowledge.  We encourage our children to have positive attitudes to learning which reflect the values and skills needed to promote responsibility for learning and future success.

Children leave Thorpe Lea with a sense of belonging to a tightly knit community where they have the confidence and skills to make decisions, self-evaluate, make connections and become lifelong learners. They are proud to be, and to have been, part of our school and community.

Reading and Phonics

At Thorpe Lea Primary School and Nursery, we want all our children to develop a love of reading which will enable them to actively seek books as a source of pleasure and enjoyment. We want them to become enthusiastic, independent and confident readers. To do this they need to have opportunities to read for interest, pleasure and information, and encouragement to select from a wide range of literature.

We have a large selection of reading scheme and ‘free reading books’ which are used for reading lessons, individual reading and for reading at home. Children are given opportunities to read with adults and to listen to stories and this is supported by our key text approach ‘The Literacy Tree’ in KS1 and KS2 English lessons. This helps them to develop their expression, understanding and of course enjoyment. Reading lessons are led by the teacher and are linked to next steps in learning. Each week all children visit our school library and are able to borrow a book of their choice. 

Phonics teaching takes place daily in EYFS and Key Stage One classes. The Phonics scheme Read Write Inc is used by practitioners to plan and deliver sessions that are visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. This also supports some readers in KS2.