The Haddon Curriculum

At Haddon our ethos is ‘Dream Big, Aim High’.  We educate our children in a nurturing, happy environment where all pupils are encouraged to achieve the highest standards.  Our curriculum offers pupils the opportunity to fulfill their full potential whilst providing experiences that they will remember forever.  We have developed an exciting and innovative model of teaching and learning for our curriculum, where learning is shaped through a key text.  This approach engages children in learning whilst equipping them with a love of reading, giving them access to a rich and diverse selection of books by the time they leave Haddon.

Our bespoke curriculum is driven by the needs of our children.  This has shaped our intent to ensure that our curriculum is rich with opportunities and learning experiences. 

To ensure that our curriculum runs through our school as a golden thread, its implementation is outlined below:

Learning is shaped through a guiding question which forms the title of the topic.  All topics begin with an exciting "hook" into learning and finish with an authentic outcome that we are proud to share with our friends and families.

To ensure that learning is purposeful and has meaning, our English curriculum runs through all of our foundation subjects to enable our pupils to apply the skills being taught.  Maths teaching follows the White Rose Mastery Approach where children develop their mental maths, fluency and reasoning within every lesson.

Phonics is taught from Foundation Stage 1 through to Year 2 following the Letters and Sounds document.  Pupils in these year groups take part in daily stand alone sessions to ensure that dedicated time is provided to these skills.  

The Early Years Foundation Stage

Our EYFS children learn and develop though a wide range of experiences and opportunities which critically meet their needs and interests. This means that the children are introduced to new ideas, extensively practise skills and apply embedded learning through an age appropriate, meaningful and an engaging curriculum which meets the needs of ALL children.

A text based curriculum provides a rich starting point of all learners, with a high quality range of fiction, non-fiction and multimedia approaches threaded through the curriculum each term. Texts are not agreed at the point of long-term planning and are also subject to change at the mid term planning stage. This is because provision in the EYFS needs to be flexible and responsive to the children’s interests / fascinations which are constantly developing and changing when children are aged between 3 and 5 years.

Our Haddon Curriculum is constantly evolving to ensure that we are meeting the needs of all our children.  It is forward thinking, addressing current issues that our pupils are exposed to today and in the future.  At Haddon, we believe in preparing our pupils for every stage of education and their future lives!

What our children think of our curriculum:

"I love going on all of the trips so that we can experience what we are learning in the classroom"

Year 5 pupil

"Picture News gets us talking as a class about things that are happening.  We get to say what we think and feel about it"

Year 2 pupil

"We have a book that we learn about - I like learning new words from my teacher"

Year 1 pupil

"I feel that I know more about the Egyptians because we learn from books, artefacts and carry out our own research"

Year 3 pupil

"I liked it when we had to think of getting the kite down from the tree - I made my own kite and my teacher read a book about a boy whose kite got stuck too!"

Foundation Stage 2 pupil

"Team Haddon"

At Haddon, our staff are dedicated to providing all of our pupils with high quality learning experiences, that are meaningful, fun and expose all children to age related expectation and challenge.

Teachers work together across school to support curriculum developments and plan in key stage teams (EYFS, Year 1 and 2, Year 3 and 4, Year 5 and 6). 

Research and Project Based Learning

Developments at Haddon

Haddon School was proud to be part of the Forever Reading Project in 2018 - 2019.  This was a  government funded project, designed to boost reading in 35 primary schools in the county.   The grant from the government was aimed at improving school performance and attainment with a primary focus of improving reading outcomes by focusing on phonics and other reading practices in early years’ education; and developing a love of reading and fine-tuning comprehension and "reading to learn" skills as children move through school.  We have continued to utilise the training and expertise that this project gave to us to keep improving reading at Haddon as a high priority on our School Improvement Plan.

Writing at Haddon

Developing writing is also one of our key priorities at Haddon during the year.  We are:

• Constantly refining our medium term plans to continue to ensure that there are writing opportunities across all areas of the curriculum;
• Using the 'Talk4Writing' approach to encourage high quality content of writing;
• Carrying out "Fast Learning" sessions daily in Year 1 and Year 2 and three times a week in KS2 to ensure that high standards in handwriting and spelling are non-negotiable;
• Ensuring high quality teaching of phonics takes place in EYFS and KS1;
• Encouraging parents and families to be partners in learning by introducing how phonics is taught in the EYFS;
• Teaching high quality grammar, punctuation and spelling in Years 1,2,3,4,5 and 6;
• Using high quality texts to underpin all of our learning and ensuring these are at the heart of our curriculum;
• Providing our children with engaging stimuli for writing across the curriculum, culminating in a purposeful and authentic end product.