Curriculum

Early Years Foundation Stage

When children enter our school aged 4, they are in the year group called Reception, which is part of the Early Years Foundation Stage. They stay here for a year.

EYFS has three prime areas of learning:

personal, social and emotional development;
communication and language;
physical development.

and four specific areas of learning:

literacy;
mathematics;
expressive arts and design;
understanding the world.

Key Stage 1 and 2

At the end of the Foundation Stage children enter Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2). At the end of Y2 the children transfer to KS2 and follow the same National Curriculum. The National Curriculum comprises core subjects, foundation subjects and other subjects.

The core subjects are:

English (Literacy)
Mathematics
Science
Computing

The foundation subjects are:

Art and design
Physical Education (PE)
Music
History
Geography
Design Technology
Modern Foreign Languages at Key Stage 2 (French)

The other subjects are:

Personal, Health, Social Education and Citizenship (PHSE&C) including RSE (Relationships & Sex Education)
Religious Education (RE)

RE is included alongside the National Curriculum and has equal standing in relation to other National Curriculum subjects. The school follows the East Sussex agreed syllabus. This is the same for all non-faith and faith schools.

RSE

RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) is taught in every year group. Learning is based on a set of key progressive objectives and it is an expectation that accurate, biological vocabulary is used throughout. RSE is taught through a mixture of direct teaching, video materials, open ended activities, child led discussion, hands on exploration (e.g. sanitary wear at KS2) and question and answer sessions. The key theme of relationships takes a central role, where we actively acknowledge and celebrate diversity in all of its forms. Consent is also a key topic and children are encouraged to identify trusted adults both within school and at home.

Curriculum Plans

These are currently below. Please see subject pages or class pages for the most up to date curriculum plans.

If you need any additional information about the curriculum for a certain year group please contact one of the class teacher's directly (details for class teachers' email addresses can be found here)

EYFS and KS1 are using the Essential Letters and Sounds scheme for phonics. Essential Letters and Sounds is also used to support in KS2 with children at the early stages of reading. You can find out more about how phonics is taught at Ashdown as part of the English curriculum by clicking here.

For more information on how learning accumulates through our curriculum, please see the cumulative learning documents on the curriculum subject pages.