Curriculum Whole School Overview
The Curriculum at Groombridge St Thomas
Our curriculum aims to:
- provide pupils with a broad, balanced education
- develop pupils to fulfil their potential
- nurture pupils into good citizens, conscious of their responsibilities to each other, their family and society.
A knowledge-rich curriculum, our school values and British Values alongside our Christian foundation, underpin our entire ethos and curriculum.
We use the Primary Knowledge Curriculum (PKC) to plan a spiral continuation of knowledge and skills from our Reception class through to Year 6. Year on year, subject-on-subject pupils continually build upon prior learning so that they develop a firm understanding within all subjects, often extending beyond the requirements of the National Curriculum and enabling them to reach a deeper level of understanding.
Reception and Key Stage 1 (Years 1 & 2)
We recognise having a good start to school is important if pupils are to develop the skills and attitude needed for good learning later on. Our aim is to give children in the Early Years Foundation Stage the best possible start to their school learning journey and inspire a passion for life-long learning. Through providing meaningful learning experiences, we strive to give children a strong foundation to grow, explore and succeed as learners.
The transition from Reception to Year 1 is dealt with sensitivity, especially in the first term where Year 1 children learn through play and have daily access to outside activities which continues to use the principles of the EYFS to develop the child’s learning and social development.
From KS1 our pupils follow the National Curriculum subjects as well as Personal, Social, Health Education (including Relationship Education). Each term children will learn either History or Geography, DT or Art as well as Music fortnightly, twice weekly PE lessons, weekly computing, daily Mathematics and English lessons and weekly focused whole class reading lessons, where pupils learn how to interpret texts and answer questions in an age-appropriate way.
Reading and phonics
Groombridge St Thomas uses the Sounds Write approach to teaching reading and writing. This system is constructed of a reversible alphabetic code which runs both from code to speech and speech to code. Children learn to read and write whole words from the beginning of Reception class, and similarly to the rest of our curriculum, the children learn phonics on a spiral basis- continually learning new code as well as applying previously learnt code in every lesson. This spiral of knowledge means that over time phonic information becomes embedded into the long term memory instead of being learnt at a surface, short term memory level. The impact of this is that by the time most of our children leave Year 1 they can read and write with fluency.
In 2024 we were congratulated for being in the top 96% of schools in the country for achieving excellent phonic results.
Key Stage 2 (Years 3 - 6)
Our Key Stage 2 curriculum is both flexible and broad. We provide practical experiences for our pupils and make links with previous learning to enable every child to be the best learner that they can possibly be.
The children continue to follow the National Curriculum subjects as well as Personal, Social, Health Education (including Relationship Education).
Each term children will learn either History or Geography, DT or Art as well as Music fortnightly, twice weekly PE lessons, weekly computing, daily Mathematics and English lessons and weekly focused whole class reading lessons, where pupils learn how to interpret texts and answer questions about what they have read in a full manner.
Personal and physical development are also key features of our curriculum as we aim to develop the whole child. Our curriculum is enriched through pupil leadership opportunities so that by the time pupils leave Groombridge, they are resilient and resourceful ready to face the next challenge in their life. We are very proud to hold the School Games Gold Mark Award.
Extra-curricular activities
There is a range of extra-curricular activities on offer including many clubs, piano lessons, visitors and events.
Please click on the link below to view our long-term curriculum plan: