Art

Art and Design at Fox Hill engages, inspires and challenges our children offering them the opportunity to develop skills with a wide range of media. Our Fox Hill Artists use critical thinking throughout the Art and Design curriculum. Children experiment, invent and create their own artwork based on a framework of skills, rigorously taught from Nursery through to Year 6.

Fox Hill Artists learn how Art and Design has shaped and contributed to our culture and learn that creativity should be valued for its own sake. Our Art and Design Curriculum is divided into two broad areas: Exploring and Using Media and Materials and Being Imaginative.

British Values

At Fox Hill we value and celebrate being part of Britain. We celebrate traditions throughout the year. For example Bonfire Night, the Christmas Nativity, Easter and Eid. We also recognise and discuss national events such as the King’s Coronation. The children learn about being part of Britain from different perspectives.

Geographically, they learn about their local environment and compare it with different places all around Great Britain, celebrating the diversity of people, customs and landscape. Historically, the children learn about British history. This spans across many centuries and includes; the Viking settlers, the Tudors, The Great Fire of London, World War 2 and many famous British people, artists and inventors.

Computing

At Fox Hill we recognise the importance of Computing. We ensure Computing is being used across the curriculum in a safe way. We have ensured that staff and children have a wide range of ICT resources to use in school to enhance learning. It is accessible to every child and teaches skills which are transferable across the curriculum, and enables further learning opportunities at home. We follow the scheme of work from the National Centre of Computing Education which allows children to develop skills in Computing, Communication, Multimedia and Data. This is all done with an emphasis on teaching children how to stay safe.

Design & Technology

Design and technology is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject. Using creativity and imagination, pupils design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values.

Fox Hill designers acquire a broad range of subject knowledge and draw on disciplines such as mathematics, science, engineering, computing and art. Pupils learn how to take risks, becoming resourceful, innovative, enterprising and capable citizens.

Through the evaluation of past and present design and technology, they develop a critical understanding of its impact on daily life and the wider world. High-quality design and technology education makes an essential contribution to the creativity, culture, wealth and well-being of the nation.

EYFS

At Fox Hill we recognise that the Early Years provides each child with the essential foundations for all future learning. We strive to build positive relationships where all children belong to a nurturing and inclusive community. We believe that each child is unique and has a right to be valued as an individual.

Geography

Geography at Fox Hill inspires our children to have a life-long curiosity about our planet and its people. We want our geography curriculum to equip children with carefully sequenced knowledge about the diversity of places, people resources and environments.

Through our planned units of work, we want our children to have an understanding of the Earth’s physical and human processes. How environments form, how they are used and how they change over time.

Children have the opportunity to study Geography through three topics during the academic year on a two-year cycle that takes account of our mixed age classes.

History

History at Fox Hill teaches our children not just knowledge about Britain and the wider world in the past but it promotes critical thinking and the ability to weigh up evidence and develop perspective and judgement.

Our high-quality history curriculum helps our children gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It inspires pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.

Maths

At Fox Hill Primary our aim is to provide a Maths curriculum which is exciting, engaging and relevant for all children. Our vision is to ensure children leave Fox Hill with mathematical skills to enable them to succeed in life. Our children learn how mathematics is used in the wider world. Throughout school from EYFS to Y6 we ensure children build up a depth of understanding for each mathematical skill through a concrete, pictorial and abstract approach. Solving problems using numerical fluency is the basis of our mathematical lessons and we also encourage children to make links between different areas of mathematics. We ensure that children leave Fox Hill with a logical and creative number fluency and with an ability to recall key number facts such as multiplication tables. We aim to use high quality resources during learning time to enhance children’s mathematical understanding. The teaching and learning at Fox Hill is based around real life maths to ensure learning is relevant, engaging and exciting. At Fox Hill we ensure children have transferable skills, the ability to reason and solve problems, and a well-developed mathematical vocabulary in order to make links between different areas of maths.

MFL

At Fox Hill we believe in the importance of all children learning an additional language. We hope this will lead children to explore other cultures and become inquisitive about the world around them. Our children have weekly Spanish lessons which enables them to feel confident enough to engage with and communicate with people who live in our community and around the world.

Music

At Fox Hill Primary our aim is to provide a music curriculum which will inspire pupils to develop a love of music. Our Music curriculum is taught using the ‘Charanga’ music scheme. This scheme provides children with the opportunity to learn to sing and play instruments, whilst developing their understanding of pulse, rhythm and notation. The lessons within the scheme also provide the opportunity for the children to compose their own pieces of music and perform in front of their peers. Where appropriate, we also provide opportunities for the children to perform in front of a wider audience.

PE

At Fox Hill, we believe that PE is fundamental to contributing to a child’s physical and mental health and wellbeing. We believe that the opportunities children receive at Fox Hill Primary School provide a chance for children to develop and build their character which help to instil values such as leadership, fairness, respect, competiveness and resilience.

We believe the younger that children can become involved in physical activity, the more likely they will be to adopt a love of sport and fitness as they grow up. We believe that it is vital that the children enjoy all physical activity (including lessons, break, lunch and afterschool) in order to create healthy, confident and active young people ready for the next stage in their life.

Reading

A reader leaving Fox Hill will develop a love of books as well as have a knowledge and understanding of a range of authors, stories, poems and non-fiction. They will cultivate a life-long love of reading which will extend far beyond the classroom and will allow them to develop a thirst for knowledge and a love of reading for pleasure. Children will experience an engaging Reading curriculum that inspires them to become fluent, imaginative, life-long readers through a rich and varied reading diet of high quality texts. These texts will demonstrate aspirational language, inspiring and engaging themes and grammatical structures to develop an understanding of the English language.

Personal Development

At Fox Hill, we recognise that the primary years are a key time for children to develop their own identity and aspirations for the future. As well as academic development, it is essential that children are given opportunities, through the curriculum and beyond, for personal development. We understand the crucial role we can play in helping children to prepare for their adult lives so they can go on to engage positively in society. The opportunities we can offer them while at Fox Hill will impact upon their future, helping them to develop the core values we hold at the school: Ready, Respectful and Safe.

Phonics

At Fox Hill, we believe that every child should have the chance to become happy, fluent readers. Therefore, phonics is taught through a highly structured programme of daily lessons across FS and KS1. This takes the form of differentiated groups according to developmental need and whole class teaching. Each session gives an opportunity for children to revisit their previously taught sounds, be taught new GPCs, practice together and apply what they have learned. Our structured synthetic phonics programme is Little Wandles.

PSHE

PSHE is essential to our children as it prepares them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences in later life. It promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of all pupils at Fox Hill Primary School. It enables children to discuss real life scenarios and situations in a range of context thus preparing for life during their time at our school and beyond. Our desire is that they leave Fox Hill as fully equipped for their next stage in life as possible. We provide children with both the knowledge and skills to be good global citizens, who can maintain good personal health and forge strong, healthy relationships with others. We believe that PSHE cannot exist in isolation; it must be threaded through all of our practise at school.

R.E.

We want children to leave Fox Hill being respectful citizens in society, and as part of this of RE curriculum helps our children to understand a range of religions and world views, and to be able to express their own ideas and insights into the significant human questions which religions address. We want children to develop enquiring minds, and to think rigorously, creatively, imaginatively and respectfully about their ideas in relation to religion and world views. Our RE curriculum (taken from the Sheffield SACRE) encourages the children to learn about Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism through a range of exciting teaching activities. Children read stories from the past and present based on inspirational leaders in order to build a wealth of knowledge and open- mindedness about the world and humans around them.

Science

At Fox Hill Primary our aim is to provide a Science curriculum which will inspire pupils to develop a love of Biology, Chemistry and Physics. We understand how science has changed our lives and is vital to the world’s future prosperity. Many of our children show a sense of excitement and curiosity about Science so we believe science provides children with curiosity of the world around them and the science that underpins this.

We aim to develop their knowledge, resilience and teamwork through the breadth of the science scheme and with a range of scientific activities to develop knowledge, skills and understanding.

At Fox Hill Primary, we focus on the core skills of ‘working scientifically’ and aim for our children to master these in each phase. Children are introduced to these in their first year and begin to develop them. As they move into their second year, they embed, extend and master them. These skills are the foundation of being an effective scientist. We also work on a two year cycle of scientific knowledge units which help to broaden and develop children’s understanding of the world.

Writing

English is a key priority at Fox Hill, as it is our belief that literate children have access to a far wider range of opportunities. We want to support children with their literacy skills so that they learn to write for different purposes and for pleasure. We also believe that children become independent learners, thinkers and communicators through developing effective speaking and listening skills. Our children acquire the essential grammar, punctuation skills and spelling knowledge to enable them to write for different purposes and in a variety of styles and contexts. The curriculum is well planned and carefully sequenced which enables children to secure learning in their long term memory. Children write purposefully for different audiences through planning, oral rehearsal, drafting, proof-reading, editing and improving, and publishing to create their own composition. They include ambitious vocabulary and carefully chosen grammar and punctuation techniques in their published writing pieces. We follow the ISHA (Improvement in School through Handwriting and Art) Handwriting approach, and Spelling Shed supports our teaching of spellings.