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Subject Information

Please click on a subject title below to find out how each subject is taught in each year group.

Art

Our aim at Trenance Learning Academy is to ensure that all children are inspired to create high-quality Art equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art.

We believe that Art should be about engaging, inspiring and challenging pupils to produce creative pieces of work, explore their ideas, record their experiences and evaluate responses. We ensure that all children learn about Art through a variety of mediums. We use our outdoor environment, local and global artists and different medias to provide the children with the fundamental skills they will use within their lives and to help them understand the impact of Art within the world they live.

In Art lessons children will produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences, building on prior understanding and skills across each year group.

 

 

Computing and Technology

Our aim at Trenance Learning Academy is to ensure pupils are equipped with the skills needed to thrive in a world with technology at its heart. We recognise the opportunities of an ever changing technological world and aim for our pupils to be responsible global citizens and creative users of technology. Computing and Technology is taught with lessons forming part of a progressive curriculum with skills at its centre.

In school, children have access to talking tins, digital cameras, ipads, Chromebooks, laptops and desktops. The children will use a range of progressive software aimed at developing skills and a fostering a passion for Computing and Technology. Computing and Technology Computing and Technology Overview
We teach children to be:
● computer literate
● use technology as a tool
● understand the vocabulary of hardware and
software
● staying safe when using technology

Design Technology

 

Our aim at Trenance Learning Academy is to ensure that all children are inspired to imagine, design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts.

We believe that Design & Technology should be about supporting pupils to take risks, becoming innovative citizens for the world in which they live. Through the evaluation of Design and Technology we want to inspire children to understand the impact of design and technology and its essential contribution to the creativity, culture, wealth and
well-being of the nation.

 

 

English

 

English is at the heart of all teaching and learning at Trenance; we place an emphasis on developing vocabulary across the curriculum and enable our pupils to expand a secure, broad word base by the time they leave us at the end of Y2.

 

Read Write Inc. - Christ Church Hanham Primary School

At the Trenance Learning Academy, we use the ‘Read Write Inc’ phonics programme designed by Ruth Miskin to teach early reading. The structured programme helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. At the core of the programme is the lively and vigorous teaching of synthetic phonics. Children learn the 44 common sounds in the English language and how to sound-blend words for reading (decoding) at the same time as developing handwriting skills and spelling (encoding).

We have found that by using the Read Write Inc. programme, children experience success from the very beginning of their reading journey. Lively phonic books are then closely matched to their increasing knowledge of phonics and as children re-read stories their fluency increases. The stories include prompts to support thinking out loud and discussions, helping children develop the skills they need to be successful storytellers.

Read Write Inc. lessons are fun and engaging and all staff who deliver the reading sessions are fully trained. The lessons are taught daily and pupils are regularly assessed and grouped to enable appropriate challenge and pace throughout the programme.

Geography

Our aim at Trenance Learning Academy is to ensure that all children are inspired to be curious and fascinated about our world and our people. We believe that geography should be about understanding our world by: comparing locations, investigating, researching different sources, writing and talking about places and asking and answering questions. Geography lessons are planned into our engaging and exciting topics with a focus on knowledge, understanding and skills.

We ensure that all children learn about Geography in diverse ways, we use our close proximity to the beach to enable the children to become aware of the environment that they live in and their place in the world. We use the outdoor environment and beach to teach the children the fundamental skills that they will use within their lives, for example, map reading, using compasses and using observational skills to study their local environment. In geography lessons children will make use of their resources around them and they will become confident in using maps, atlases and globes to identify different places around the world. Our broad and balanced curriculum is designed to develop knowledge, understanding and skills that are progressive as well as transferable to further education and beyond.

 

 

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Maths

At Trenance we believe that everyone can succeed in Mathematics. We know how important good maths teaching is because everything a child learns while they are with us paves the way for future learning. We use White Rose Maths and Big Maths to support our comprehensive teaching. Each unit is broken down into small steps allowing all children to gradually build and develop their understanding on previous knowledge.

We use a Concrete Pictorial Abstract (CPA) approach and allow pupils to spend enough time to fully explore a concept, reinforcing it with practice, before moving onto the next one. Mental arithmetic is practiced every day within lessons as well as further opportunities to use mathematics in theafternoons during topic work.

Lessons comprise of teachers directly teaching the class followed by children practicing their maths skills by teaching each other. We work closely with the Maths Hub to support teaching our children Mastery. Mastering maths means acquiring a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject. At any one point in a pupil's journey through school, achieving mastery is taken to mean acquiring a solid enough understanding of the maths that has been taught to enable him/her to move on to more advanced material.

 

 

 

Modern Foreign Language

At Trenance, we believe that learning languages should be engaging and fun while challenging pupils to be language detectives. Lessons are taught through a series of activities such as songs, games and listening to simple stories.
Spanish is a phonetic language, so the learning of it will help cement the phonics knowledge in English.

During lessons, pupils will have lots of opportunities to practise their Spanish speaking with other pupils and their teacher.
Pupils will also learn interesting facts about Spanish speaking countries, which will give them a knowledge of other countries and cultures. We believe that our broad and balanced curriculum will instil a love of languages in our children that will make them curious about other countries and cultures around the world.

 

 

Music

 

Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. Our aim at Trenance Learning Academy is to ensure that all children access a high quality music education which should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.

We foster a life-long love of music by regularly working with community choirs and musicians as well as our own talented team to show pupils the enjoyment that can be found in music.

 

 

Personal, Social, Health & Economics

We are a happy and caring school who pride ourselves on the wide range of opportunities we create for our pupils which centre around their health, wellbeing and social and emotional development. We believe in empowering our pupils and laying the foundations for lifelong learning. Our curriculum is designed to support every child as well as giving them the tools to help them manage their emotions, support their mental health and to enable them to make healthy choices throughout their lives.

Our school ethos celebrates all aspects of school life and the positive experiences that are a central part of school life at Trenance Learning Academy. PSHE is fully embedded within our curriculum as well as being taught as a weekly subject. It is further enhanced by visits from people who help us within our local community, involvement in charity events and with outside agencies and initiatives that promote health and wellbeing.

We start every school year with the topics ‘Ready Steady Go’ and ‘This is Our School.’ PSHE lessons start the school year with the theme, ‘Being Me in My World’. These topics focus on school life, ensuring that all children are well supported in settling into their new year group and that they feel safe and happy.

 

 

Physical Education

 

We want our children to leave Trenance knowing the importance of ‘Be fit-Fit mind, Fit body, Fit me’ and have a real passion for keeping themselves active throughout their entire lifetime.
 

 

Religious & World Faith

Our aim at Trenance Learning Academy is to ensure that children have a coherent and progressive curriculum that identifies what pupils should know and understand by the end of each year and how that contributes to what they will go on to study in the next year. In this way pupils will encounter the rich spiritual and religious heritage of Cornwall and explore its relevance today. We encourage children to enquire about marks on the landscape such as Celtic Crosses and Standing stones. Why there are special festivals celebrating Special people, such as St Petroc, St Piran and the
Cornish Saints.

They can enjoy the collective experience of listening to stories and learn ways to tell local stories to others. They can also investigate places of importance near the school like the Huer’s Hut and local churches, exploring their use and importance in the past or today. 60 % of the curriculum will focus on Christianity and the other 40% will be focused on the Jewish and Muslim religious teaching and practices. However this does not exclude the teaching and understanding of all faiths and important festivals from other religions when they arise through the school year. Our aim is that our children will, through our teaching and learning in RE, leave Trenance as respectful members of our community and ‘culturally rich’ in understanding of our multicultural society and tolerant of all world views and religions.

 

 

Science

At Trenance Learning Academy our Science Curriculum follows the National Curriculum as we believe that this is a brilliant, tried and tested resource. The main aim is to enable pupils to observe, question and be curious about their surroundings and the world in which they live. Throughout their learning, pupils will be taught different types of scientific enquiry and guided how best to put them into practice.

The types of scientific enquiry are as follows:

  • Observing changes over time
  • Noticing patterns
  • Grouping and classifying
  • Carrying out simple tests
  • Using secondary sources

Vocabulary underpins scientific understanding; at Trenance Learning Academy we equip our pupils with scientific terminology, allowing them to effectively communicate their findings and understanding. These skills not only help our pupils become scientists, it also enables them to use these skills and vocabulary to further access the rest of the curriculum. We enrich our science curriculum by varying the ways in which we reach our learning objectives through our exciting and engaging topics. By doing so, we can take a child’s imagination and curiosity to the next level. Teaching different aspects of science through topic work as well as the National Curriculum, we believe, gives pupils the best of both structure and freedom in their learning, allowing them to apply their scientific knowledge to abstract contexts.

Outdoor learning is instilled in our ethos as a school and each year group are able to access different settings in their local community. We believe this builds a positive relationship between the children and their local environment which is of growing importance in today’s current climate. Children learn through hands on investigation and memories which bring their learning to life. They are able to use skills they have acquired in the classroom and apply these to real world scenarios.

We believe that by integrating these three different approaches we are able to give children a broad and balanced introduction to science: igniting their passion, encouraging curiosity, promoting a love of learning as well as the world and phenomena around them. In doing this we know that when children leave Trenance Learning Academy they are equipped to access and thrive in future scientific learning.