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Primary Curriculum
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
At Heartwood Learning Trust, we understand the importance of making a strong start in Early Year. We have a Vision for Excellence in EYFS that is underpinned by our vision for the future pupil that will leave us at the end of year 6.
The journey to developing this child begins in our Early Years settings. Each of our EYFS settings is unique, and their curricula reflects their locality and their children. Each setting has key drivers that shape their curriculum and learning experiences. Our Early Years practitioners are highly skilled and proactive in their professional development. This professional development is ably supported by a collaborative team of EYFS leads across the Trust.
Through the relationships developed by our staff, our settings cultivate a deep sense of belonging that pupils carry throughout their time with us. Through our carefully constructed curricula, high expectations, powerful environments and high-quality adult interactions, our pupils leave Reception with high levels of self-regulation, curiosity, creativity and secure foundational knowledge that prepares them to flourish and thrive at the next stage of their education and beyond.
Phonics
At Heartwood Learning Trust, we utilise Ruth Miskin’s Read Write Inc. This SSP reflects our commitment to ensuring that every child, regardless of background or need, learns to read and loves to read. This programme begins by teaching the core skills of segmenting and blending to start children on their ‘reading journey’. We use pictures and rhymes to help children remember these sounds.
Set 1 Sounds
Initially children are taught one way to say a sound. Some of the sounds are stretchy sounds and some are bouncy sounds. (a-a-a-a is a bouncy sound, mmmm is a stretchy sound).
Set 2 Sounds
Once children are familiar with the Set 1 sounds, we introduce digraph (2 or more letters that together make one sound). We call these ‘Special Friends’.
Set 3 Sounds
Once they can read these sounds confidently, we teach pupils new ways to read the same sounds. As they learn more spellings of the sounds, the books they read contain more spellings. Children only read books with the sounds they know. This way they build confidence quickly.
Our dedicated assessment cycle ensures that all children are taught at their challenge point, with more frequent fortnightly assessments deployed for any pupils who are at risk of falling behind. We also implement daily 1:1 tutoring for the bottom 20% of readers to ensure that they catch up and keep up.
RWInc covers the entirety of the KS1 English curriculum, with a love for reading and comprehension supported by our use of Talk Through Stories. This programme exposes children to ambitious Tier Two vocabulary and enables children to develop their oracy and comprehension through talk tasks and the teacher “thinking out loud”.
We work closely with experts from Ruth Miskin to ensure that our practice is constantly reviewed and refined. This takes place with annual school Development Days where our skilled phonics leaders work with experts from Ruth Miskin to ensure our actions maximise learning and close the gap for our disadvantaged learners.
Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check
The Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) is an online assessment designed to determine if students can recall multiplication facts up to 12×12 with speed and accuracy. The primary purpose of the check is to ensure that pupils have mastered these foundational mathematical skills to the point of automaticity. This frees up cognitive load, allowing them to focus on more complex mathematical concepts in later years, such as long multiplication, fractions, and algebra.
At Heartwood Learning Trust, we teach multiplication tables from Year 2, building up to 12×12 by the end of Year 4. This is embedded into our mathematics curriculum. Daily chanting of times tables through the Daily Count, a key aspect of our mathematics lessons, helps to embed this knowledge into long-term memory through repetition.
Through effective formative assessment, we identify pupils who need support and we take rapid action to close the gap. Actions may include small group sessions where pupils are supported to develop a deep understanding of multiplicative thinking using manipulatives like counters or arrays to visualise the multiplication, or targeted one-on-one practice to address specific times tables a child is struggling with.
We also use Times Tables Rock Stars, a gamified online platform that motivates pupils to practise their times tables through short, timed games, mirroring the format of the actual MTC. This enables pupils to continue their learning at home. This combination of whole-class, digital, and targeted support ensures pupils are well-prepared for the check.
Primary Subject Information
At Heartwood Learning Trust, mathematics is taught through a carefully sequenced programme utilising White Rose Maths that teaches a balance of fluency, reasoning and problem solving. A range of activities allow opportunities for pupils to retain and apply their mathematical knowledge including in registration activities and additional times tables activities. Teachers effectively use models and images and an appropriate balance of concrete, visual and abstract representations to teach concepts.
In EYFS and KS1, Mastering Number is used to develop pupils’ awareness of number sense and to develop key numerical skills to automaticity, so they are prepared to succeed at the next stage of their mathematical education. We take a mastery approach to mathematical pedagogy, heavily utilising the CPA approach. Our pupils must first grasp a concept using concrete manipulatives, then connect that understanding to visual representations before they can confidently use abstract symbols like numbers and equations.
At Heartwood Learning Trust, we utilise the Literacy Tree’s Writing Roots detailed planning alongside our lesson structure of Connect, I Do, We Do, You Do and the Independent Learning Zone to ensure that pupils leave our primaries as confident, fluent writers who are able to express themselves cogently and coherently in a variety of written forms.
Our curriculum is rooted in high-quality children’s literature, as we recognise that rich texts expose pupils to a wide range of vocabulary, genres and authorial styles that enable them to effectively develop their own authorial voice. It also supports our commitment to cultivating a love of reading in our pupils, and that begins with exposure to wonderful, ambitious books in an environment where they are ably supported to enjoy them. Our text choices reflect social justice, representation, and diverse cultures so that we usualise difference through exposing pupils to different lived experiences through “windows, mirrors and doors”.
The units are underpinned by the “Teach through the Text” pedagogy. Texts are carefully selected to be unified under a key theme each half term, so that pupils can understand how meaning can be expressed across different forms of literature. This enables them to compare and contrast a range of texts, developing a breadth of literary knowledge. Through debate and discussion, they explore these important themes such as migration and difference and write with purpose for real audiences. Literary language is embedded and revisited across the year, so pupils are able to remember and apply these key terms as writers. Reading comprehension is embedded as we recognise that pupils must be able to understand plot, purpose and future possibilities in order to create these in their own writing. Grammar is also embedded in our lessons, and revisited repeatedly. We know that quality writing arises from pupils applying their grammatical knowledge for real purpose, so grammar is embedded and revisited within and across units. Our lessons are not taught in isolation. Through our carefully layered learning curriculum, we provide a comprehensive progression throughout the year and beyond. Writing opportunities are revisited to reinforce objectives and make learning stick.
We know that “opportunities to write frequently and at length can support pupils to become fluent and effective writers” (Ofsted Research Review) so our outcomes are not genre-led nor focused on a “Big Write” at the end of the unit. Instead, we enable frequent opportunities for our pupils to write so that they practise and embed new knowledge and build their writing stamina. This is also complemented by the Independent Learning Zone, where pupils are expected to work at length without adult or peer support.
Once our pupils have ‘graduated’ from Phonics, they are fluent enough to access our whole class reading lessons. We provide a rich reading curriculum that has been carefully designed to ensure pupils engage with high-quality, carefully selected texts that provide pupils with a wide variety of perspectives that go beyond their lived experience, whilst enabling them to see themselves in the curriculum. These texts are high-quality because they are vocabulary rich, and provide pupils with substantive literary knowledge about plot types and key aspects of the literary canon that will enable them to identify references and tropes as they become more independent readers. The selection criteria for these texts is robustly research-informed.
Pupils are supported to fully engage with these texts through: explicit modelling of the internal thoughts and strategies of an expert reader; lessons focusing on fluency development through oral fluency practice and Reading Plus; the development of global and local comprehension through skilled scaffolding through questioning and discussion in our Modelled Comprehension lessons.
At Heartwood Learning Trust, we follow the Ark Curriculum Plus mastery programme, accessible via the Oxford Owl website, with each colleague having their own login credentials. Its core aim is to equip pupils with both a secure body of knowledge and an understanding of scientific practices, enabling them to grasp the uses, limitations, and implications of science in the modern world. Pupils study key concepts such as the characteristics of living organisms, fostering curiosity and excitement about the natural world, while also learning about the nature, processes, and methods of science through exposure to different types of enquiry. This helps them appreciate that scientific knowledge is built through enquiry and can change with new evidence. Alongside this, the curriculum highlights science’s historical contributions to society and its vital role in addressing global challenges such as climate change and food security.
Fully resourced and adaptable, the curriculum is supported by progression documents, subject knowledge guides, unit planning guidance, teaching slides, and knowledge organisers. Schools also use high-quality pupil workbooks aligned with the curriculum, with photocopiable versions available in the resources section.
At Heartwood Learning Trust, our broad and balanced curriculum, sequenced from EYFS to Year 6, enables pupils to explore other cultures, developing empathy, curiosity and advocacy. Through the teaching of geography we endeavour to teach pupils to understand and embrace the complexity of people’s lives and the diversity of societies and beliefs, whilst celebrating these differences.
We ensure that our units are carefully designed to develop pupils’ knowledge of key geographical concepts: boundaries; cartography; change; climate; interdependence; movement; physical geography; resources; and settlements.
Our curriculum is also designed to develop pupils’ knowledge of place and to challenge the single story narrative. Consequently, pupils study five core places and revisit these over time: Yorkshire, Brazil, Egypt, The Arctic Circle, and Oceania. This enables them to develop an increasingly sophisticated knowledge of place.
We have chosen areas of study that engage, excite and enable all children, providing them with a deep knowledge and understanding of the geography of their local area, the United Kingdom and the wider world; giving them the secure foundations that will enable them to thrive in their geography studies at secondary school and beyond.
We have been ambitious in our planning and all lessons are supported by comprehensive medium-term planning. Our high quality geography lessons inspire our pupils to want to know more about the world and to think, talk, write and act as geographers, understanding their role in society and the wider world.
At Heartwood, our broad and balanced curriculum is sequenced from EYFS to Year 6 and it is compliant with the National Curriculum. Our sequencing ensures that substantive and disciplinary knowledge are carefully developed in key strands so that pupils develop a deep understanding of the interconnected nature of history through substantive and disciplinary concepts. This level of depth and challenge ensures that pupils’ curiosity about the past is nurtured and encouraged.
We have chosen areas of study that engage, excite and enable all children, providing them with a deep knowledge and understanding of the history of Britain and the wider world. We know this will provide all of our pupils with strong foundations that will enable them to thrive in their history studies at secondary school and beyond.
We ensure that our units are carefully designed to develop pupils’ knowledge of substantive and disciplinary concepts. Our substantive concepts fall within our four core areas: community & culture; conflict & disaster; exploration & invention, and hierarchy & power.
Our units are centred around an overarching enquiry question which, through carefully sequenced historical enquiries, pupils are able to answer by the end of the unit. Each unit focuses on key disciplinary concepts, which are as follows: significance; cause and consequence; change and continuity; similarity and difference; and evidence and interpretations. This supports pupils to view history not just as facts about the past but through the lens of a historian.
Our curriculum includes areas of study that expose pupils to “windows, mirrors and doors”. This approach enables our pupils to broaden their horizons and deepen their understanding of other cultures and usualise diversity. We believe that this will enable our children to be advocates for themselves and for others. Through the teaching of history, we endeavour to teach pupils to understand the complexity of life and society on a global scale, including that of the present, the process of change, the diversity of societies and beliefs, whilst celebrating these differences.
We have been ambitious in our planning and all lessons are supported by detailed medium-term planning. Our pupils ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. High quality history lessons inspire pupils to want to know more about the past and to think, talk, write and act as historians, understanding their role in time. Our pupils learn lessons from history, enabling them to become informed, responsible and considerate citizens who understand and appreciate our past, whilst using this knowledge to inform our future.
