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OUR CLASSES

OUR
CLASSES

Each Year Group has its own pop-up page which will be updated throughout the year with relevant information for parents.

Please click a link below to visit each Year Group:

Teachers

EYFS & Year 1

Miss Griffiths

Miss Page

Miss Spillett

Teaching Assistants

EYFS & Year 1

Mrs Gifford

Miss McCormack

Miss Marshall

Year 2 & 3

Miss Evans

Mrs Dhaliwal

Miss Trotman

Miss Parsons

Year 2 & 3

Mrs Barnwell

Miss Sweeney

Miss Kapija

Miss Kakol

Year 4, 5 & 6

Mrs White

Miss Farne

Mrs Coulson

Mrs Branscombe-Ling

Mrs Uyinmwen

Mrs Page

Year 4, 5 & 6

Mrs Wells

Miss Cairns

Mrs Vickery

Miss Edwards

Mrs Cocianga

Mr Vine

OUR
CURRICULUM

QUALITY OF EDUCATION

INTENT

Phoenix Primary School is a proud accredited Centre of Excellence with enhanced VbE and Character Education accolades. With VbE at the heart of our curriculum we are developing ethical vocabulary and ethical intelligence, which could be argued is the most important intelligence for the sustainability of our world, enabling Phoenix children to be educated citizens, helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.

As VbE underpins everything we do, we have carefully designed a relevant curriculum, which prepares the pupils for the world in which they will live and work. Through our curriculum, we aim to provide the pupils with the knowledge, skills, habits and character traits that can be applied across all traditional academic subject areas an in all educational, career and social settings throughout their life.

We provide rich opportunities for the pupils to explore citizenship and real-life issues, which at times they may have to grapple with and make sense of, working together to develop ‘real life’ values such as collaboration and communication, respect, justice, courage, compassion and forgiveness. As these values and skills shape the way that we live together and our response to the issues that we will encounter through our global curriculum.

IMPLEMENTATION

Our curriculum is knowledge engaged, underpinned by our curriculum drivers that responds to the needs, challenges and indeed opportunities of our children at Phoenix. Phoenix pupils learn skills alongside knowledge, ensuring that both are explicitly developed. Knowledge and skills are intertwined at Phoenix. Children are curious and tenacious when seeking out new information, develop, consolidate, and deepen their knowledge, understanding and skills to ensure that they have the tools required celebrate new opportunities stepping into the diverse world outside our doors. (Reinforced by Trust QA) Pupils and staff can articulate their knowledge and understanding clearly, holding conversations with adults and peers to discuss their knowledge, skills and metacognition using the six strands that are sequentially planned to deliver all portable requirements from EYFS – Year 6+.

Teach, rehearse, and apply is a teaching cycle from EYFS to year 6 embedding the skills and knowledge securely throughout the school creating an environment of purposeful and conducive deliberate practice.

Retention is sustained at Phoenix by rich processes to alter long term memory. Knowledge organisers are used to build subject specific vocabulary and knowledge but available to build links and enhance learning and application across other subjects. Retrieval, feedback and assessment are prioritised to ensure fluency, understanding and application of new knowledge as skills. Assessment is used to highlight gaps for planning, identify misconceptions, remove barriers and enhance learning priorities for rich dialogue with pupils through enquiry questions, PiXL and Insight.

Cross curricular teaching is emphasised at Phoenix to ensure the portable knowledge and skills are embedded throughout foundation and core subjects. This is approached with the vein of a core text and three processes:

What is the intended outcome for the children – using the NC and subject leader knowledge

The implemented curriculum – our resources to deliver the curriculum – sequential plans, classroom environment, tools, knowledge organisers etc

Live curriculum – the importance of bringing this knowledge to life, making it relevant and meaningful

As a school we recognised the need of effective adaptive teaching. A range of internal assessments, as well as use of external agencies are consistently applied to ensure gaps and barriers to learning are identified quickly and efficiently to ensure provided activities are appropriately designed and adapted to children’s needs and aptitude. The school’s focus is on ensuring that newly learnt knowledge and skills are being applied in various contexts with increasing fluency, consistency and independence.

Six strands enable staff to use a universal language to promote and build the meta-cognition of our children, creating highly effective questioning for challenge, understanding and concise feedback however, ensuring the cognitive load is low as children move across the school. It is an expectation that the teacher’s feedback is actioned to move learning forward and the children capitalise on this. Consequently, they flourish and make good progress over time.

IMPACT

The outcome of the Phoenix curriculum is self-leadership, which enables everyone to work towards fulfilling their potential. Phoenix recognises that impact can not only be measured in quantitively evidence, the context of Phoenix can often mean that our children do not begin school with the same experiences as children in other areas. Our children love the challenge of learning and are resilient to failure, they are continuously curious, and the teachers are equally determined that their children will be holistically successful, in lessons and in their participation in extra-curricular opportunities. Leaders have a clear vision and timeline in this journey as they are determined to continually close the gap for these pupils so that the educational disadvantage within the community is removed.

Full Policy and Curriculum HUB documents available in school.

CORE
CURRICULUM HUB

CREATIVITY
CURRICULUM HUB

HUMANITIES
CURRICULUM HUB

HEALTH & WELLBEING
CURRICULUM HUB

READING

EARLY READING STATEMENT

At Phoenix, we believe that the teaching of reading is vital to a child’s understanding and appreciation of the world around them (non-fiction); a platform that allows our children to see beyond what they know, share experiences and develop the vocabulary they need to effectively express themselves.

Our reading curriculum ensures the perfect balance between cognitive reading processes, which develop the children’s technical and comprehension skills and effective experiences which support a lifelong love of reading.

SYSTEMATIC PHONICS – MONSTER PHONICS

Monster Phonics is a whole-class Systematic Synthetic Phonics Scheme with Decodable Books for children in Reception and Key Stage 1. It is also used as an intervention in Key Stages 1 and 2.

Monster Phonics teaches children to read by enabling them to identify the individual graphemes (letter combinations) and blend the sounds (phonemes) together to read the word. It is a fun way to teach phonics, since it is multi-sensory. Sounds are categorised into ten colour groups, and each colour has a corresponding monster character. Monster Phonics is a highly advanced multisensory scheme. This creates interest and engagement from the children.

Vocabulary focus

Phoenix is committed to the Daily Read, outside of all Literacy lessons, each class reads an ambitious and inspiring text by a skilled practitioner that understands the importance of quality modelling to their class. Vocabulary is critical to reading success as comprehension skills are improved when a child understands what words mean. Words are also the currency of communication, and a robust vocabulary improves all areas of communication – listening, speaking, reading and writing. It also improves academic and social confidence when children can articulate their thoughts and feelings.

Opportunities to develop these skills include:

pupil councils, pupil voice, talk partners, debates and drama. Speaking and listening skills are taught in English, but also developed across the curriculum and extra-curricular activities

Each class will use one of their Guided Reading sessions for whole class Echo Reading session which will dovetail with reading fluency and prosody. This will be a holistic approach to reading and each component will contribute to the progress of children’s attainment and ability to answer end of key stage assessments more accurately.

Reading fluency is a significant indicator of reading comprehension. When children can read fluently, it means they can focus their cognitive efforts on the meaning of the text, rather than decoding.

EXTRA-
CURRICULAR

At Phoenix we offer a wide range of activities either side of the school day. This starts with Breakfast club which is open to all children from 8.00am. While there they will have the opportunity to eat cereals, fruit and toast and take part in social and academic activities. This is free for Pupil Premium children.

After-School Clubs

After school clubs are offered to all year groups and are organised on a 2 termly basis. After school clubs offer the children the chance to develop new skills or deepen existing ones. After school clubs include anything from sports, choir, maths, computing, art and additional languages. After school clubs provide an opportunity for children to interact with peers not only from their year group but across their phases. This helps the children build positive relationships with peers and improves social skills. Participation in these clubs can increase the children’s overall engagement in school. It allows the children the opportunity to look forward to something and feel more connected in their school community. Clubs give the children the platform to explore their interests, discover new interests and gain confidence.

Term 4:

Term 5:

Term 6:

All Clubs run from 3:30pm to 4:10pm

Swimming

Phoenix has now introduced swimming lessons for all year groups. By offering swimming as part of the curriculum, we can give students a valuable skill that will benefit them in many ways. Swimming lessons are designed to meet both the national curriculum requirements for physical education and water safety. This shows a strong commitment to the children's overall development. Not only will they improve their physical fitness, but they’ll also build social, mental, and emotional well-being through swimming. It's a great way to foster teamwork, discipline, and confidence, especially since swimming is an activity that can be enjoyed throughout all age groups. Swimming is a versatile skill that everyone can learn and benefit from—whether it’s for fun, safety, or fitness—it is great that all year groups will have the opportunity to participate. Allowing all year groups, the opportunity to experience swimming, it ensures that children will have a well-rounded experience.

CURRICULUM

READING

EXTRA-CURRICULAR

OPAL

(Outdoor Play and Learning)

Working with staff, governors, children and our families, we have one simple aim,
amazing playtimes for every child every day.

We are proud to say that we are becoming an OPAL school

OPAL is an award-winning, mentor supported programme that is supporting us to improve the quality of our play opportunities. OPAL is the only programme of its kind that has been independently proven to sustainably improve the quality of play in British primary schools.

At Phoenix Primary, we believe that high-quality play is essential for the holistic development and well-being of our students. Aligned with the OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) vision, we aim to transform our lunchtime play into a period of joy, creativity, and growth for every child. Our commitment is to ensure that every student experiences an hour of high-quality play every day, recognizing it as a fundamental right and a critical component of their physical, mental, and emotional development.

Our school believes that all children need opportunities to play that allow them to explore, manipulate, experience and affect their environment. We believe play provision should be welcoming and accessible to every child, irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, economic or social circumstances, ethnic or cultural background or origin, or individual abilities.

The OPAL Primary Programme rationale is that “… better, more active and creative playtimes can mean happier and healthier children, and having happier, healthier, more active children usually results in a more positive attitude to learning in school, with more effective classroom lessons, less staff time spent resolving unnecessary behavioural problems, fewer playtime accidents, happier staff and a healthier attitude to life.”

Play is defined as a process that is intrinsically motivated, directed by the child and freely chosen by the child. Play has its own value and provides its own purpose. It may or may not involve equipment or other people.

We believe play has many benefits, including:

Play is critical to children’s health and wellbeing, and essential for their physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual development.
Play enables children to explore the physical and social environment, as well as different concepts and ideas.
Play enhances children’s self-esteem and their understanding of others through freely chosen social interactions, within peer groups, with individuals, and within groups of different ages, abilities, interests, genders, ethnicities and cultures.
Play requires ongoing communication and negotiation skills, enabling children to develop a balance between their right to act freely and their responsibilities to others.
Play enables children to experience a wide range of emotions and develop their ability to cope with these, including sadness and happiness, rejection and acceptance, frustration and achievement, boredom and fascination, fear and confidence.
Play encourages self-confidence and the ability to make choices, problem solve and to be creative.
Play maintains children’s openness to learning, develops their capabilities and allows them to push the boundaries of what they can achieve.

In relation to play at Phoenix, we aim to:

Ensure play settings provide a varied, challenging and stimulating environment.
Allow children to take risks and use a common-sense approach to the management of these risks and their benefits.
Provide opportunities for children to develop their relationships with each other.
Enable children to develop respect for their surroundings and each other.
A
Provide a range of environments that will encourage children to explore and play imaginatively.
Provide a range of environments that and learning about the world around them.
Promote independence and teamwork within children.
Build emotional and physical resilience.

Our Play Policy details how we run our playtimes.

OPAL Play Policy

HOME
LEARNING

We recognise that we are a part of your child’s education and that parents and extended families play an important role in the development. This can include sports, access to the arts, travel, life experiences and academic progress amongst others.

The school will provide home learning which will be age appropriate and there is the expectation that this is completed as it will often reinforce work completed in school or preparatory work for lessons.

Reading is a core skill and we allow children the opportunity to explore new genres and topics, reading at home should be encouraged as it broadens vocabulary and creates a lifelong love of reading.

STUDENT
ASSESSMENT

We continually assess children’s work in class and we collect data from this 6 times a year. We will hold two parent interviews each academic year where you will have the chance to discuss your child’s progress. At the end of the academic year, you will receive a full report from your teacher highlighting successes throughout the year.

It is important that we not only report on academic outcomes also a range of other achievements through the child’s artistic, character, values, attitude, sporting amongst many others. We believe this encapsulates the development of the whole child.

At different points of the year, we may invite you to meetings to discuss particular academic milestones such as KS1&2 SATs, this will be an opportunity to see what the children will be doing and why they are doing these tests.