At Lindsworth School, our aim within KS2 is to deliver a high quality, engaging curriculum that allows learners to achieve their full potential and be able to feel confident when taking the next steps in their educational journey and beyond.
Pupils have flourished under our ethos; developing their social skills and confidence through appropriate challenges in lessons, positive promotion of respect and tolerance in school and opportunities for enrichment activities outside of school, including rock climbing, swimming, team building activities, circus skills and therapeutic horse riding lessons.
Our key goals include:
A safe and positive learning environment, where pupils feel secure in being able to express themselves.
What do we include in our curriculum?
In KS2, our thematic cross curricular approach provides different challenges and learning opportunities for our pupils. Learning is interlinked, encouraging pupils to learn and apply different skills across a range of lessons and tasks. We aim for all students to be interested in the world around them and develop a love and enthusiasm for learning. Lessons are tailored for individual needs and we teach within different environments, including forest school and educational visits that link to each topic.
KS2 Curriculum Plan: [ Download ]
Why is reading so important to us?
Reading is crucial and has many benefits for children, from inspiring the imagination to improving academic abilities and being able to access the curriculum within primary and secondary school education. We believe that all children should be able to read fluently and be able to enjoy reading for pleasure. Reading improves children’s vocabulary and language skills as well as expanding their understanding of the world.
In key stage 2, children read to a member of staff each day. All children receive reading lessons that are taught through reciprocal reading strategies and teachers read a class novel to the children, modelling fluency and enjoyment of reading. We also read across the curriculum using interesting and engaging texts.
Reading interventions – Rapid Reading and Rapid Phonics
We understand that some children have missed education and as a result are not able to read at their expected age. In order to support these children we follow interventions to bridge gaps in learning. We follow the DFE accredited Rapid Phonics and Rapid Reading scheme, which is a fantastic collection of finely-levelled fiction and non-fiction books, also available as eBooks, covering a variety of topics and themes that children love. This strategy is implemented throughout the school and we have a dedicated member of staff within each year group to support all our children - from key stage 2 up to year 11- if support is needed.
Reading is crucial and has many benefits for children, from inspiring the imagination to improving academic abilities and being able to access the curriculum within primary and secondary school education. We believe that all children should be able to read fluently and be able to enjoy reading for pleasure. Reading improves children’s vocabulary and language skills as well as expanding their understanding of the world.
In key stage 2, children read to a member of staff each day. All children receive reading lessons that are taught through reciprocal reading strategies and teachers read a class novel to the children, modelling fluency and enjoyment of reading. We also read across the curriculum using interesting and engaging texts.
Reading interventions – Rapid Reading and Rapid Phonics
We understand that some children have missed education and as a result are not able to read at their expected age. In order to support these children we follow interventions to bridge gaps in learning. We follow the DFE accredited Rapid Phonics and Rapid Reading scheme, which is a fantastic collection of finely-levelled fiction and non-fiction books, also available as eBooks, covering a variety of topics and themes that children love. This strategy is implemented throughout the school and we have a dedicated member of staff within each year group to support all our children - from key stage 2 up to year 11- if support is needed.
How do we cater for all our children’s needs?
In KS2 we understand all children are at different stages of their education and have different needs at different times. In order to support our children we offer the following strategies to support their mental health and emotional wellbeing;
What you can do to help at home
Parents play a crucial role in supporting their children’s learning, and levels of parental engagement are consistently associated with better academic outcomes. Evidence suggests that effective parental engagement can lead to learning gains of +3 months over the course of a year. In order to support this we encourage our pupils to read as much as possible.
Books of interest will be sent home to encourage pupils to read with parents, rewards and incentives will be given to children to celebrate success. We will also send key spelling words home for your child to practise so that they can be successful within literacy lessons.
Download [ Spelling words end of year 4 ] [ Spelling words end of year 6 ]
Maths: As a school, we have access to online platforms that allow learners to develop all aspects of their numeracy skills, including Times Tables Rockstars. Using these at home can only help your child progress further in Maths.
Interesting Websites
Numeracy
TT Rock stars https://ttrockstars.com/
Timetables https://www.timestables.co.uk/
Hit the Button https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
BBC bitesize KS2 Maths - BBC Bitesize
Nrich Sumo | NRICH (maths.org)
Literacy
Phonics play PhonicsPlay - Resources
BBC bitesize KS2 English - BBC Bitesize
Book Trust https://www.booktrust.org.uk/what-we-do/
Open Library https://openlibrary.org/
Project Gutenburg https://www.gutenberg.org/
Curriculum
Scratch Scratch - Imagine, Program, Share (mit.edu)
Topic Games Games - KS2 History - BBC Bitesize
Moon camp https://mooncampchallenge.org/
In our KS2 unit we believe strongly about starting interventions as soon as possible so that the young people can learn about self-regulation, self-confidence, anger management, social skills and much more.
All pupils in KS2 participate in weekly circle time and social skills, anger management, Forest School therapy and celebration assemblies. We also offer individualised interventions such as mentoring, self-esteem, art therapy, Malachi mentoring and anger management.
In KS2 we offer a varied enrichment programme. Our aim is to help our young people build resilience, social skills and social awareness, as well as learning new skills and strategies to help self-regulate all whilst having fun and new experiences.
Our enrichment programme includes
Cooking
Gardening
Forest School
Horse riding and therapy
Rock climbing
Yoga
Cycling
Kayaking
A big aim of ours in KS2 is to recognise gaps in the young people’s learning history and build bridges to support that. Many of the pupils joining us have gaps in their educational knowledge and their curriculum knowledge, particularly in key skills. We run daily interventions to support this using Froggy Maths, Rapid Reader and Rapid Phonics as well as differentiated learning, interventions and support.
