Castilion Primary School’s Art and Design Curriculum

At Castilion Primary School, we teach art and design through the AccessArt Programme. AccessArt works to inspire and enable high-quality visual arts teaching, learning & practice. AccessArt was founded in 1999 by Paula Briggs and Sheila Ceccarelli, graduates of the Royal College of Art Sculpture School. AccessArt is now the leading provider of digital visual arts resources in the UK. The AccessArt scheme meets the requirements of the national curriculum for art and design and aims to ensure that all pupils:

• produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
• become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
• evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
• know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.

Castilion Primary School’s DT Curriculum

At Castilion Primary School, we teach design and technology through the PlanBee Programme. PlanBee is crafted by experienced educators and curriculum specialists, ensuring high-quality materials. It covers a wide range of topics and subjects to meet the needs of every stage and learning objective. It offers consistent learning progression with resources designed to build knowledge and skills over time.

The PlanBee scheme meets the requirements of the national curriculum for design and technology and aims to ensure that all pupils:

• develop the creative, technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world
• build and apply a repertoire of knowledge, understanding and skills in order to design and make high-quality prototypes and products for a wide range of users
• critique, evaluate and test their ideas and products and the work of others
• understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook.

Information about computing at Castilion is currently being updated and will be available here soon.

Castilion Primary School’s English Curriculum

At Castilion Primary School, Reading and Writing are prioritised to allow pupils to access and respond to the full curriculum offer. A rigorous and sequential approach to the reading and writing curriculum develops pupils’ fluency, confidence and enjoyment in reading and writing. The curriculum is successfully adapted to be ambitious and meet the needs of pupils with SEND. Through the use of the schools I do, We do, You do teaching strategy, teachers model new procedures and use resources and approaches that enable pupils to understand the English they are learning. At all stages, English is assessed and gaps are addressed quickly and effectively for all pupils. 

 Castilion Primary School’s Humanities (History and Geography) Curriculum

At Castilion Primary School, we teach humanities ( history and geography) through the Boost Programme. Boost offers high-quality, flexible curriculum programmes and classroom resources that teachers can adapt for their own contexts and children’s needs. The Boost schemes meet the requirements of the national curriculum for history and geography and they aim to ensure that all pupils:

The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
• Know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
• gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
• understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses
• understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed History – key stages 1 and 2 2
• gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.

The national curriculum for geography aims to ensure that all pupils:

• develop contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places – both terrestrial and marine – including their defining physical and human characteristics and how these provide a geographical context for understanding the actions of processes
• understand the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world, how these are interdependent and how they bring about spatial variation and change over time
• are competent in the geographical skills needed to:  
  • collect, analyse and communicate with a range of data gathered through experiences of fieldwork that deepen their understanding of geographical processes
  • interpret a range f sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
  • communicate geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills and writing at length.

Castilion Primary School’s Music Curriculum

At Castilion Primary School we teach music using the Charanga Music Programme. This programme is the UK’s leading scheme to teach the national curriculum for music at KS1–2. The aims of this scheme are to ensure all pupils:

• perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians
• learn to sing and to use their voices, to create and compose music on their own and with others, have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, use technology appropriately and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of musical excellence
• understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

Additionally, all children across the school take part in a weekly singing lesson provided by a professional music teacher from the Bexley Music Hub.

Castilion Primary School’s French Language Curriculum

At Castilion Primary School we teach French using the Rigolo French Language Programme. This programme is the UK's number 1 Primary French programme and is a three-star winner of the Teach Primary Resource Awards. The scheme meets the requirements of the national curriculum for languages for KS2 and aims to ensure that all KS2 pupils:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
• speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation
• can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt
• discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied

Castilion Primary School’s Mathematics Curriculum

At Castilion Primary School, curriculum planning for mathematics carefully sequences knowledge, concepts and procedures to build mathematical knowledge and skills systematically. The curriculum is successfully adapted to be ambitious and meet the needs of pupils with SEND. Pupils who may be behind age-related expectations are provided with the opportunities to learn the mathematical knowledge and skills necessary to catch up with their peers. Through the use of the schools I do, We do, You do teaching strategy, teachers model new procedures and use resources and approaches that enable pupils to understand the mathematics they are learning. At all stages, mathematics is assessed and gaps are addressed quickly and effectively for all pupils. 

Castilion Primary School’s Physical Education Curriculum

At Castilion Primary School, curriculum planning for physical education carefully sequences the skills and processes specified within each key stage. The curriculum is successfully adapted to be ambitious and meet the needs of pupils with SEND.  In line with the national curriculum for physical education,  physical education planning at Castilion Primary School aims to ensure that all pupils:

• develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities
• are physically active for sustained periods of time
• engage in competitive sports and activities
• lead healthy, active lives

DfE’s statutory guidance on relationships education, relationships and sex education and health education

The school has consulted with parents in relation to the DfE’s statutory guidance on relationships education, relationships and sex education and health education. 

Castilion Primary is teaching the requirements of the national curriculum for Science:

The content set out in this guidance covers everything that primary schools should teach about relationships and health, including puberty. The national curriculum for science also includes subject content in related areas, such as the main external body parts, the human body as it grows from birth to old age (including puberty) and reproduction in some plants and animals.

Castilion Primary is teaching:

The fundamental characteristics of positive relationships, strengthening the understanding that children will be developing at home.

‘Primary schools should take account of the age limits in the secondary RSHE curriculum tables, to ensure that no inappropriate content is taught.’

Castilion Primary is not teaching sex education

The Relationships Education, RSE, and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019 have made Relationships Education compulsory in all primary schools. Sex education is not compulsory in primary schools.  

Castilion Primary School’s RE Curriculum

Rationale Religious Education (RE) is not a national curriculum subject, but must be taught to all pupils as part of the basic curriculum offer. As RE is not nationally determined, the Local Education Authority must provide an Agreed Syllabus for us to follow. We use the Bexley Agreed Syllabus of Religious Education (2014).

Religious Education encourages pupils to learn from different religions, beliefs, values and traditions while challenging and exploring their own beliefs and questions of meaning and to develop their own sense of identity and belonging. It also enables them to respect the views of others that differ from their own and prepares them for living in a world and local community that is diverse in both culture and belief.

Families who send their children to this school are from a range of faith backgrounds. RE is concerned with “learning about religion” and “learning from religion” and it is not the practice of this school to preach to or convert the children. The faith background of both the staff and child’s family is respected at all times. Parents of a pupil at a community, foundation or voluntary school have a right to withdraw their child/children from RE lessons. If a parent asks for their child to be wholly or partly excused from attending any RE, the school must comply.

Castilion Primary School’s Science Curriculum

At Castilion Primary School, curriculum planning for science carefully sequences knowledge, concepts and procedures to build scientific knowledge and skills systematically. The curriculum is successfully adapted to be ambitious and meet the needs of pupils with SEND.  In line with the national curriculum for science, science planning at Castilion Primary School aims to ensure that all pupils:

• develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics
• develop understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science through different types of science enquiries that help them to answer scientific questions about the world around them
• are equipped with the scientific knowledge required to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future

Through the use of the schools I do, We do, You do teaching strategy, teachers model new procedures and use resources and approaches that enable pupils to understand the scientific concepts they are learning. At all stages, science is assessed and gaps are addressed quickly and effectively for all pupils.