Faith is a joint Catholic and Church of England school which is based on the values of the Gospel. At Faith, our first responsibility is to provide a happy and safe, loving Christian environment that helps all our children to succeed and meet or exceed national expectations.
We know our pupils well and we do our very best to make sure every child is provided for as an individual. We have high expectations and aspirational aims for our school and our children and we are committed to the delivery of quality education for every child in our community.
At Faith are committed to ensuring the success and happiness of every child. We recognize and value our work with parents as at the heart of the effectiveness of our school.
Our school is a happy and loving Christian family community. At Faith, everyone is treated equally, encouraged and respected. We believe that all children should be able to achieve their full potential spiritually, academically, socially, and emotionally. We are committed to our school being a safe and inclusive place where learning is nurtured and encouraged in a happy, caring, and fun environment. We all work for our school to be a happy place where all children enjoy their educational journey.
Early Years Foundation Stage. This is where children start their journey at Faith, so our priority is providing a happy, safe and inclusive environment for all children to enjoy coming into every day.
At Faith, we aim to deliver a curriculum that is responsive to children’s needs and values them as individuals. We ensure that our curriculum is broad and balanced and gives our children the skills to narrow the gap and be able to leave us closer to Age Related Expectations. To ensure rapid progress, teaching in Nursery focuses mainly on the prime areas. As children progress into Reception the prime areas are still present in teaching but children also begin to explore the specific areas of learning in greater depth.
We want our children to leave Early Years as competent independent learners and therefore our curriculum is heavily influenced by the characteristics of effective learning Playing and Exploring Active Learning and Creativity, and thinking critically.
We acknowledge the potential for learning in every activity and situation that arises. We aim to provide a secure and stimulating environment in which children flourish and learn to make sense of the real world. We make every child feel valued and give them the confidence to become active learners. Our activities provide first-hand experiences through play and discussion, children are encouraged to interact with others, to move about, and explore a wide variety of learning situations.
There are well-planned areas of provision with a wide range of activities, resources, and materials available. Opportunities are provided for sustained activity and continuous provision, as well as spontaneous, self-chosen activities. Children must experience success, have fun and enjoy themselves whilst learning therefore this is our priority when planning and teaching our curriculum.
There are 3 Prime Areas and 4 Specific Areas:
- Communication and language
- Physical Development
- Personal, Social, and Emotional Development
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the World
- Expressive arts and design
At Faith Primary School, we have developed our Phonics Programme of Study incorporating the Read Write Inc. scheme to support the teaching of phonics across Early Years and Key Stage One.
Phonics sessions take place every day in small focused groups for all Early Years and Key Stage 1 children. Within these daily phonics sessions, children are taught five key skills.
Phonics assessment is an ongoing formative assessment by teachers during and after the sessions, and each half term children complete a summative phonics assessment. This is to ensure all children are making progress and to identify any gaps in knowledge.
Children who do not reach the national standard at the end of Year 1 are given extra support during Year 2 to help them achieve the national standard at the end of Key Stage 1.
