Lower KS2
In lower KS2, our ambitious curriculum encourages a depth of thinking, elaboration, extension and connection to what they have learnt in KS1 as well as their own lives and what they will learn next. It continues to nurture a love of learning, underpinned by our Marden Marvellous Learning Behaviours and Star Values and building upon what they have learnt in their journey at Marden Lodge so far.
As the children move into Year 3 and 4, reading continues to be a priority and part of everyday life. When children are secure in their decoding skills, they continue building on the skills taught in Key Stage 1 during daily reading lessons, following the CUSP curriculum. Our lessons focus on a structured learning sequence which explicitly teaches the core reading strategies. Children take part in scaffolded CUSP lessons which begin with explicit vocabulary instruction, followed by deliberate fluency instruction to develop their prosody, before explicit teaching of comprehension strategies. Each lesson focuses on a different key reading skill: summarising, retrieval, inference and predicting. We explore high-quality diverse texts and engage in regular discussions making connections between these texts and our own experiences.
Our Writing curriculum is sequenced progressively across Lower Key Stage 2 to ensure that skills are being revisited, embedded and built upon; creatively using The Write Stuff approach with thoughtful adaptations. Lessons allow children to discuss and share vocabulary, with teachers modelling specific techniques to allow children to develop and practise these skills before moving on to plan and write their own. The final part of the teaching sequence, allows children to reflect on their writing. All writing is taught through a thoughtfully chosen text, which engages children and further promotes their love of English. Children are provided with plenty of opportunities to practise these skills across the other areas of the curriculum. As the children move away from Read, Write, Inc in their Reading lessons, we use the Spelling Shed programme to ensure that phonetic knowledge is continually revisited and spellings are taught in a consistent and systematic manner.
The maths curriculum at Marden Lodge Primary School follows the pedagogy of Teaching for Mastery. Children at Marden Lodge learn through the explicit teaching of small steps, operating under one learning objective. Within this, mathematical, conceptual knowledge is deepened through effective questioning. The children are exposed to a range of resources to support their learning, including practical activities, pictorial and abstract problems to develop a secure understanding of mathematical procedures. The children are encouraged to develop their learning further, through their reasoning explanations and activities- the answer is just the beginning. Children’s Times Tables learning is supported through the use of Number Sense and Times Tables Rockstars.
Our topic-based wider curriculum develops skills and knowledge progressively taught year-on-year. Each topic is carefully selected to engage the children and cover the National Curriculum objectives for each subject. Where appropriate, their learning is strengthened through engaging and memorable experiences and opportunities. In Year 3, children start to learn Spanish and children are taught swimming as part of their PE curriculum in year 3 and 4.
