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Curriculum

At Abbey Woods, we aim to provide a rich and engaging curriculum that meets the needs of the children in our community. We aim to motivate and inspire children through a curriculum that engages and challenges all learners.

Our curriculum is designed to deepen knowledge and develop skills, ensuring effective progression within each subject and across all year groups. Our CARE values, alongside our school mission statement, 'growing together, learning for life, caring for all', are at the heart of our curriculum and all that we do. They drive pupils' learning and development. 

We follow National Curriculum guidance and beyond to ensure that this underpins all curriculum design and provision. We further enrich our curriculum through exciting learning experiences, workshops and trips.

In primary schools, learning is organised into three phases:

  • Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS): Ages 3 – 5 (Nursery and Reception)
  • Key Stage 1: Ages 5 – 7 (Years 1 and 2)
  • Key Stage 2: Ages 7 – 11 (Years 3 – 6)

We follow the Development Matters Framework in EYFS and the National Curriculum in KS1 and KS2. Areas of learning and development included in each phase are described below. All schools are also required to teach religious education.

At Abbey Woods our curriculum intent is clear and we continue to work on the implementation stage to ensure curriculum coverage and sound knowledge progression exists across the board.

In the delivery of our curriculum we comply fully the Equality Act 2010 to unsure discrimination does not take place against the protected characteristics. Our curriculum is accessible to all learners and none of the protected characteristics will be treated less fairly by teachers as they deliver our curriculum.

Our curriculum if fully accessible for those with disabilities or SEN and we comply fully with the Special Educational Needs and Disability regulations 2014. All learners can access all parts of our curriculum as a result of the reasonable adjustments we make. 


You can find out more about our long-term curriculum plans for each year group at the bottom of this page.

Our curriculum intent

The curriculum has been designed to ensure that the full range of objectives outlined in the National Curriculum are covered as a minimum expectation but with an aspiration to extend knowledge and build connections linked to the school’s context.

Our curriculum design ensures that our pupils have the opportunity to:  

  • Acquire key knowledge and make links with previous learning.
  • Develop their mental and physical wellbeing.
  • Be community-minded, aspirational, respectful and equality-focused.
  • Develop socially, emotionally, morally, culturally and spiritually.
  • Celebrate achievements and diversity.
  • Enhance British values and become a valuable member of modern Britain.
  • Have a voice that can make a positive difference to all aspects of their life.  To do this, we encourage and provide many opportunities for our children to develop a sense of themselves and then to develop their aspirations, independence and resilience.
  • Explore how their school community, local community and wider community is important to them, influences them and the reciprocal contributions which lead them to become future model citizens.
  • Be exposed to more cultural capital in our curriculum in a way that closes the gap between children from different socio-economic backgrounds by ensuring that children from all backgrounds have the same opportunities in society to achieve their full potential.
  • The curriculum is adapted to meet the needs of children with SEND and is aimed at being as inclusive as possible so that all children feel engaged and supported to access the learning in a way that meets their individual needs.

Implementing our curriculum

  • As a school, we have chosen to use the EYFS Development Matters Framework and the National Curriculum alongside specific year group themes to allow our children to gain the substantive and disciplinary knowledge and skills to succeed.
  • The new curriculum Leader has adapted curriculum mapping to ensure key knowledge progression is mapped out and draws on key learning from daily plans generated by various schemes of work. 
  • English knowledge is explicitly taught daily, and this is applied throughout the whole curriculum using the newly embedded Read, Write Inc. for EYFS and KS1 and Literacy Tree for KS2. 
  • In Maths, Maths No Problem scheme and White Rose overviews help develop pupils’ fluency and higher order problem-solving skills.
  • Geography, History, Science and P.E are taught discretely using Rising Stars scheme of work as a base but with an expectation to adapt to suit Abbey Woods learners.
  • Music is taught by a peripatetic music teacher using the Charanga Music Curriculum.
  • Our MFL is French and we use the Language Angels scheme to enure progression and coverage. 
  • Art and DT are taught using the Kapow scheme of work as a base but with an expectation to adapt to suit Abbey Woods learners.
  • PSHE is taught using Jigsaw scheme of work.
  • R.E is taught using the Discovery R.E scheme of work.
  • P.E is taught using rising Stars Champion scheme of work with the specific sport based lessons taught by specialist coaches from Elite and the other 'boot camp' fitness lessons taught by class teachers. 
  • These schemes are being used to ensure pupils are taught the appropriate age related knowledge and ensures consistency in our school. 
  • Enriched educational visits, visitors and experiences are now planned for 2022/23 to provide further experiential knowledge
  • To supplement the PE curriculum, we provide our pupils with positive experiences of sport and physical activity at a young age which we hope builds a lifetime habit of participation supplemented with skilled sports coaches.
  • Marking provides constructive feedback about successes and areas for development using a feedback policy that is based around a two-way process between child and adult with feedback delivered verbally where possible from distance marking grids. This is being monitored carefully.
  • Time is provided for children to respond to any feedback or marking in their books and this has had a positive impact on children’s progress and their awareness of their next steps.

Impact of our curriculum

  • Pupils gain and retain all the required knowledge for each subject and make connections between prior learning across the curriculum.
  • Pupil achievement will be at age related expectations for their year group across the curriculum. The school’s performance in national standards will improve.
  • Pupils are motivated by a strong sense of morality, they will make decisions for the right reasons and in the best interest of the local and wider community.
  • Pupils Experience a broad and balanced curriculum with a focus on personal development helps to grow our children into community minded, aspirational, respectful and equality focused learners.
Early Years Foundation Stage Key Stages 1 and 2
Communcation and language English
Physical development Mathematics
Personal, social and emotional development Science
Literacy Art and design
Mathematics Computing
Understanding the world Design and technology
Expressive arts and design French (KS2)
  Geography
  History
  Music
  Physical education