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Curriculum

Our Curriculum Subjects at Manuden Primary School

At Manuden Primary School, our curriculum is carefully designed to reflect our vision: A Small School with Big Ideas – Growing Hearts, Growing Minds, Growing Dreams. Every subject plays a vital role in nurturing our pupils’ academic growth, character development, and curiosity about the world. We believe that all children should have access to a rich, ambitious, and well-sequenced curriculum that enables them to achieve their best.

To ensure clarity, depth and progression, all subjects are taught discretely. This approach allows each subject to retain its unique identity while building a strong foundation of knowledge and skills over time. Our subject leaders have chosen evidence-informed schemes of learning that are carefully adapted to our mixed-age classes and local context. We aim to ignite a love of learning in every child and equip them with the knowledge, creativity and confidence to follow their dreams.

Subjects at Manuden Primary School

Art

Intent:
At Manuden Primary School, we believe that art stimulates creativity, imagination, and inventiveness. Art gives our pupils the skills, concepts, and knowledge necessary to express themselves and respond to ideas and experiences. Our Art curriculum provides opportunities for children to develop their skills using a range of media and techniques. It encourages self-expression and exploration, supports creative risk-taking, and fires their imagination — in line with our vision of Growing Hearts, Growing Minds, Growing Dreams.

Computing

Intent:
Our aim is to prepare children for the digital world and provide them with the transferable skills needed to navigate it safely and confidently. We aim to:

  • Develop digital literacy, enabling children to express themselves and their ideas safely through technology.

  • Deepen their understanding of computer science, learning how digital systems work and how to program.

  • Ensure all children use technology responsibly, becoming confident, competent, and creative users of information technology.

Design and Technology (DT)

Intent:
At Manuden Primary School, we deliver a high-quality DT curriculum that inspires creativity and practical problem-solving. Through DT, our pupils develop the skills, knowledge, and understanding to design, make and evaluate functional products. Pupils explore real-world contexts and use a range of tools and materials, fostering innovation, perseverance, and collaboration.

English – Reading

Intent:

“Reading is a gateway into unfamiliar places, other people and alternative experiences.” – Mary Myatt

We are a reading school and reading is at the heart of our curriculum. At Manuden Primary, we nurture a love of books and develop confident, fluent readers. We believe reading is an essential life skill and provide rich, diverse texts to broaden children's horizons. Our approach builds decoding, comprehension, and vocabulary, while encouraging curiosity and empathy.

English – Writing

Intent:
At Manuden Primary, we want our children to write with confidence, creativity and purpose. We teach them to:

  • Express themselves clearly and precisely across a range of genres.

  • Draw on knowledge from reading to structure and style their writing.

  • Understand how writing helps to communicate, remember, persuade, and entertain.
    Our approach builds stamina, grammar, and vocabulary, fostering young authors who take pride in their work.

French (Languages)

Intent:
At Manuden Primary School, we aim to:

  • Deliver a relevant, engaging and accessible French curriculum that fulfils the National Curriculum requirements.

  • Inspire pupils through a variety of topics and resources, encouraging a lifelong love of languages.

  • Develop listening, speaking, reading and writing skills progressively from Year 3 onwards.
    We value the importance of cultural understanding and global citizenship as part of our language offer.

Geography

Intent:
At Manuden Primary, our geography curriculum inspires a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people. We aim to:

  • Deliver a broad and balanced curriculum rooted in place knowledge, physical and human geography, and fieldwork skills.

  • Encourage pupils to ask questions about the world and consider their role as global citizens.

  • Equip pupils with the knowledge and skills to understand and respond to global and local environmental issues.

History

Intent:
At Manuden Primary, we shape our history curriculum to ensure it is inclusive, engaging, and knowledge-rich. We aim to:

  • Fulfil the National Curriculum for history through enquiry-based learning.

  • Develop chronological understanding, historical interpretation, and use of evidence.

  • Encourage pupils to explore the past through the lens of significant people, events, and societies — making connections with British Values and their own lives.

Maths

Intent:
At Manuden Primary School, our mathematics curriculum is designed to promote fluency, reasoning, and problem-solving. As stated in the National Curriculum:

“Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline... essential to everyday life and critical to science, technology, and engineering.”

We aim to:

  • Ensure children develop a secure and deep understanding of number and calculation.

  • Foster mathematical confidence and resilience through small-step progression.

  • Enable all pupils to apply mathematical knowledge in real-world contexts and across the curriculum.

Long Term Plans