At Round Diamond we provide a bespoke inclusive curriculum, thoughtfully designed with our pupils in mind.  It is a curriculum that is centred around our values of Responsible, Determined and Successful.  We encourage determination when children face more challenging skills, knowledge and concepts as their learning is stretched and consolidated. We ensure our curriculum is pitched appropriately to ensure success for all children whilst also providing progression and aspirational targets for the children to strive for.

Our curriculum delivers a cumulative sequence of knowledge and skills, building upon prior knowledge from the previous term and year so that learning is regularly recapped to aid retention. We aim for our curriculum to teach children about other cultures, ethnicities, religions and backgrounds through our choice of texts, topics and assemblies. Our curriculum design and lessons structure is supported by the Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988). Our lessons focus on spaced learning and retrieval practice to reduce cognitive load and transfer learning from the working memory to the long-term memory. We value robust assessment for learning identifying children’s gaps in their learning. Our curriculum can then be adapted to ensure these are targeted and the building blocks for future learning are secured. 

For learners in our school, consistency is key. From teaching to learning environments we aim to provide seamless transition from Nursery to Year 6. Our curriculum is planned to instil a thirst for knowledge and new experiences, providing children with a range of learning opportunities which further develops the ‘whole’ child and nurtures their social, emotional, physical and creative sides preparing the children to be lifelong independent, resilient learners, prepared for the next stage of their education and lives. An excellent understanding of our pupils’ cultural capital allows for a holistic approach that supports the progression of skills, whilst offering a broad and exciting curriculum.  We strive to create valuable citizens who are successful and can contribute to their whole community.  

This page contains curriculum information which we feel is useful to parents to help further support children learning at home. It also highlights the specific programmes/schemes that are used to support phonics and reading at Round Diamond. 

If you would like further information regarding the organisation of our curriculum please visit our curriculum tab found under Key Information (or link the link below). This page gives more detailed information including: curriculum intent, coverage and skill progression. 

Annual Curriculum Maps - A picture of what the children at RD will be learning about during the school year 2023-2024

We encourage you to use the overviews to gain an insight into your child's learning for the year. You could use this information to initiate discussions with your child about the upcoming term, raising possible questions the children may have and beginning to foster an interest in the subject area. You may choose to use the content to inspire visits with your child such as a trip to the natural history museum if they will be studying Ancient Egypt or a visit to the planetarium if studying space. 

Maths

English

Phonics

Childrens' initial phonetic knowledge begins to be developed from entry to the Early Years at Round Diamond.

Nursery children begin by listening for environmental sounds daily within the setting and then they are soon after exposed to letter sounds and names through song. In the Summer term, Nursery children will have 10 minutes of explicit phonics teaching, in ability sets. Children will leave Nursery having been explicitly taught ‘s a t p i n’ letter sounds.

In Reception, children will build up to 20 minutes of discrete, systematic teaching of phonics each day (including the teaching of high frequency words (HFW)). Over the year, the Reception routine will develop to provide Reception children with an hour of phonetic opportunities throughout the day. This hour will allow children time to consolidate previous learning, learn new content, and practise what they have learnt. It will be accessed within explicit ability set phonics lessons, child initiated learning sessions, individual reading slots and story times.

Children in Year 1 will also have 20 minutes of discrete, systematic phonics teaching each day, this will include the teaching of high frequency words (HFW).

The teaching of phonics at Round Diamond will adopt the following teaching sequence to support reading and spelling:

Revisit and Review –Teach – Practise – Apply – Assess against Success Criteria.

At the end of Year 1, children will undertake a Phonics Screening Assessment. Children who do not pass this test will continue to receive discrete, daily teaching of phonics in Year 2. Those children who still do not pass the test at the end of Year 2, generally due to individual needs, are closely monitored and tracked by the Head of Inclusion.

Home Reading Texts

We use a range of publishers at Round Diamond to ensure that children experience a variety of texts.

Most recently, we have invested in an assortment of Collins Big Cat Books. Collins Big Cat Phonics books feature exciting fiction and non-fiction decodable texts to enthuse and inspire readers. These texts are fully aligned with our long term progression of phonics and assessment of phonics at Round Diamond. They contain notes in the back which can be used as a supportive tool when reading together at home for fluency.

Alongside this, the texts are filled with humour, drama, detailed illustrations and endearing characters to motivate every child, perfect for the new National Curriculum and carefully levelled to make sure every child makes reading progress.

Spelling

Children are tested with up to 12 spellings once a week in Years 1-6. These spellings consist of words that follow the learnt spelling rule from class that week and the corresponding year group common exception words. Teachers update a spelling tracker of common exception words following the completion of each weekly spelling test. Spellings lists are sent home once a week as part of the home learning at Round Diamond.

Common exception words for each year group are displayed in every English learning space as a ‘Word Wall’. Word Walls are used in an interactive, cross-curricular way to facilitate the children’s accuracy of these spellings and provide children with consistent approach to spellings.

Those children with SEND are provided with a bespoke spelling plan, this plan is liaised with the Head of Inclusion and the English Faculty.