The school uses a whole school programme called ‘RULER’ to teach emotional/mental health and wellbeing awareness and skills. 

RULER was originally created by The Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence and is supported by extensive research in the USA and Australia.

At the core of the approach is the importance of giving children an emotional vocabulary, the time and space to listen and reflect on how they feel and a set of tools to help them move to a more positive set of feelings, for example, when sadness, frustration, anger or loneliness, are experienced.

RULER stands for:

• Recognising emotions in yourself and others
• Understanding the causes and consequences of emotions
• Labelling emotions accurately – if you can name it you can tame it
• Expressing emotions appropriately
• Regulating emotions effectively

The children are taught these skills through a series of tools, and they regularly revisit their emotions, while unpicking the vocabulary of different feelings.  Our termly focus vocabulary builds understanding of different emotions, as well as emotional awareness and understanding. Alongside this, children sign up daily on Ivern’s feelings monsters (EYFS/KS1) or Ivern’s Feelings Wheel (KS2) to destigmatise the sharing of emotions and help the belief that all emotions are healthy and valid.  These tools are represented by colours and help the children to think of emotions in terms of the amount energy and pleasantness they create in their bodies and minds. Some feelings will be high energy and high pleasantness, such as excitement, or high energy and low pleasantness such as anger.  Others may be low energy and high pleasantness such as feeling relaxed, or low energy and low pleasantness, such as loneliness. 

Children learn to reflect on what causes them to feel their emotions and consider the consequences of that feeling on their own wellbeing or its impact on others. They learn strategies to maintain that mood or to help lessen it. We regularly have these reflections and discussions in lessons such as PSHEE or when discussing book characters, as well as at the start of family assemblies.

Other tools include the Class Charter. The Class Charter is written and displayed by each class each year.  This identifies the feelings and associated behaviours children wish to see in their classroom alongside Ivern’s Golden Rules. Charters are a powerful tool to ensure personal and social responsibility and help remind everyone to be the best version of themselves.

Emotional Vocabulary to be used whenever appropriate Click here

Each year group has their own Curriculum Overview.

Teachers evaluate the curriculum termly and co-ordinators will adapt and change the curriculum in response to their evaluations.  Our curriculum is therefore continually evolving in order to meet the needs of our pupils.

Please visit the Year Group pages to see their Curriculum Overviews and Curriculum Newsletters.

In accordance with the school’s Equal Opportunities, SEN and Inclusion Policies (see school policies page), all children at Corsham Primary School will be given full access to the National Curriculum/Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. Staff will endeavour to help all children reach their full potential irrespective of race, physical ability, gender, age or learning ability.

The school day starts at 8.50am and finishes at 3.10pm

Total direct teaching hours and indirect teaching time is 28 hours 20 mins

Management

The learning environment is managed to cater for different learning styles and needs to take into consideration, a range of levels and abilities:

• Whole class teaching.
• Group work and focus groups which are organised according to appropriate criteria i.e. ability, mixed ability, single sex, interest etc.
• One to one teaching.
• Conferencing.
• Collaborative learning with talk partners or groups.
• Independent learning.

All areas of the learning environment will be utilised including provision for outdoor learning, which ensures learning opportunities for a range of varied and stimulating learning experiences in all areas of the curriculum, which develop appropriate skills, concepts and knowledge.

Teaching Assistants and external agencies are employed to support children with Special Educational Needs and disabilities, as outlined on their Individual Education Plans. Inclusion is at the forefront of planning for these children which may indicate working 1:1 outside the classroom for short periods.

Behaviour Management

As outlined in the whole school Behaviour Policy every class will display the Golden Rules poster.

Organisation

• Classrooms are organised to facilitate learning and the development of independence.
• The resources in each area are grouped according to curriculum subject and clearly labelled.
• In order to enable whole-class interactive teaching from years three to six, pupils’ tables and chairs are organised in a horseshoe arrangement.  This offers good sightlines and good lines for communication, both verbal and non-verbal.  In year two the tables are organised in groups but in a horseshoe around the carpet area.  In the summer term, year two tables are then organised into the horseshoe shape.
• Writing resources are available for use at all times, and are easily accessible.
• Book corners are comfortable and attractive.
• Labels and posters wherever possible reflect the language diversity in the school community.
• In the Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1, areas for imaginative play are changed termly and linked to enquiry themes.  These give opportunities for a range of play and role-play experiences which contribute to learning in a purposeful manner.
• Pupils are involved in the maintenance and care of all equipment and resources.
• Pupils are encouraged and allowed access to water bottles.

We aim to provide a “vibrant” interactive and supportive learning environment.

We are committed to raising standards of Basic Skills at Corsham Primary School. By Basic Skills, we mean the ability to read, write and speak in English, and to use mathematics and computing at a level necessary to function and progress in the workplace, and in society in general.

Reading

At Corsham Primary School we are determined that every child will become a reader and endeavour to provide outstanding reading experiences and inspiring learning opportunities which promote the importance of this lifelong skill.  All children, both boys and girls, will be exposed to a range of carefully chosen, high-quality texts in order to develop stamina, broaden their knowledge of the world, widen their vocabulary and prepare them for reading beyond Primary School.

Writing

We believe that children learn best when they are provided with a range of opportunities and skills for writing across the curriculum.  Teachers will provide a stimulating environment that promotes all aspects of literacy learning.  Children have access to a range of writing equipment and resources to support and further develop their writing.

Maths

We believe that maths at Corsham Primary should be creative and engaging.  It should be presented through a context which is meaningful and stimulating for all children at their own level.  Children should be confidently able to apply their skills and knowledge to imaginatively solve problems.

Phonics and Reading Schemes

At Corsham Primary School we use the 'Read, Write, Inc' phonics scheme in order to teach children word recognition and spelling through developing their ability to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes (the smallest unit of spoken language), and to teach them the relationship between phonemes and the graphemes (written letters or combinations of letters).  To consolidate this learning, children will bring home 'Read, Write, Inc' reading books matched to their individual phonic level.