Nettlebed Community School educates, informs and prepares this generation for further studies and for life. The ‘Nettlebed Way’ aims to create well-rounded, kind, well balanced, open-minded, inquisitive, explorative, challenge-seeking, risk-taking, confident individuals who are ready for their next stage of learning. We believe that these formative years help to shape the lives of our young people and we encourage all at school to ‘Reach Up Reach Out’.

Through the experiences and knowledge imparted in our unique curriculum we strive for all children to love the world they are in and understand how it connects to the wider world around them. We relish diversity and celebrate difference. We want children to understand what it means to be a global citizen.

The curriculum is arranged so children can explore wider concepts of the world rooted in history and geography – both natural and man-made- and the impacts upon their future. Through this approach we enrich the children in the topic and vocabulary to embed deeper understanding of concepts in and between each subject.

Well-being, both physical and mental, is at the heart of our curriculum and this sits alongside the school’s values and diamond rules in order to offer children a framework in which to develop. A framework of safety and understanding with adults who will listen to and value them.

How is the curriculum arranged?

The curriculum is arranged in 3 parts: The Early Years, The Lower School (Years 1,2 and 3) and the Upper School (Years 4,5 and 6). The Upper School operates on a 3 year rotation of topics due to the class structure.

What subjects do we teach?

We teach the full National Curriculum plus many additional features such as Forest School for 3 year groups, access to musical instruments at every year group, opportunities to learn 2 languages and residential trips from Year 3 upwards. You can see in the Long Term plans above what we teach in each year group.

Each teacher is also responsible for a subject or two across the school. These individual subjects have set intentions and outcomes as well as progress measures. This is communicated to the children in 'I cans' or 'I know' so they can measure their own learning. Each subject below starts in the foundation stage and is built upon sequentially until the child reaches Year 6. 

What do our lessons look like?

All our lessons have have opportunity for exploration through reviewing material, sequencing concepts and modelling, stages of practise and questioning.

All topics have an enquiry-based approach and children are encouraged to offer questions of their own. Questions form an integral part of the lessons and are used to explore new ideas, check understanding and build on prior learning.

We teach the skills and knowledge necessary for answering the question through a series of planned smaller taught steps. Previous knowledge and concepts are reviewed for understanding and new learning is introduced in small ‘chunks’ so as to create clear connected knowledge. All teachers model any new learning and offer the children opportunities to test this new concept before attempting it independently.

Experiences are a key part of the learning process and wherever possible the children have a chance to have practical activities to support and enrich the learning. This includes trips, visitors, virtual lessons and artefacts.

What will my child have to help them in lessons?

Children are supported through the use of subject specific vocabulary teaching, visual aids and metacognition. We encourage children to explore different ways of learning so as to provide them with skills for a range of situations.

We use a variety of different stimuli to offer a ‘hook’ for the children and a purpose for the learning such as songs, videos and drama to engage all of the senses.

Children always have concrete opportunities to practise new skills in groups, pairs and independently.

How do the teachers mark and assess?

Formative assessment forms the backbone of our assessment. All adults in school mark the work mainly during lessons so as to ensure that any misconceptions can be addressed in the lesson. The adults mark in green pen and the children mark in pink pen. We believe that the children can be each other’s best supports and peer marking features strongly too.

When a teacher finds a common misconception in a lesson, then they will use this to add in to future learning rather than mark individual’s books in detail. This allows greater time for teaching and greater understanding for all the children.

Positive feedback goes alongside constructive feedback as we guide the children to Reach Up.

Summative assessments take place at the end of each learning block so as to ensure future plans are built on existing knowledge.

How are Reading skills taught?

At Nettlebed we are committed to providing great reading provision and developing pupils’ proficiency in, and love of, reading. We aim to ensure that all children have the skills, knowledge and understanding to become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers.

We believe that high-quality phonics teaching improves literacy levels and gives all children a solid base on which to build and develop their reading habits so that they read widely and often. Through daily, systematic and consistent high-quality phonics teaching, children learn to blend and segment words for reading and spelling. To allow our children to develop a strong phonic awareness and effective blending, decoding and comprehension skills, we have chosen to use a DfE Validated synthetic phonics programme (SSP) called FFT Success for All Phonics from Family Fishers Trust.

This scheme is continued into Year 3 with the Upper School continuing to cover the expected spelling for their Year groups.

Reading at Nettlebed School