We make links with our local environment and local people wherever we can. As our local community is predominantly white British, we ensure that not just local community links are made, but children are made aware of the diverse background of society. We do this by taking part in national events, local events, charity events and learning about famous people - be it authors, artists, musicians, historians or designers. 

Our curriculum includes activities appropriate to the age and development of our pupils that will help to prepare them positively for life in Modern Britain and which actively promote the fundamental British Values along with our STAR values (Safe, Trust, Achieve and Resilience) and the Co-op Ways of Being (Be yourself, always, Show you care, Do what matters most, Succeed together). 

Friarswood families are predominantly from a white background, so to support our children in learning about various backgrounds, we have a range of high quality texts which children read throughout the year and children read in various subjects. The children learn about different authors, various people with different backgrounds to their own which enables them to widen their understanding of the world.

Many of our children are members of our before and after school club, Small & Tall.  They are also members of clubs outside of school. At Friarswood, we believe that physical wellbeing as well as mental wellbeing are of the utmost importance part of a child’s development. We develop this by ensuring that all of our children take part in daily exercise. 

We have at least 2 hours of P.E a week and we provide competitions for children both in school and with other schools. Competitions are not just for the children who thrive with sports but for the children who prefer quieter, less energetic activities. Time is given to be aware of themselves and their achievements both inside of school and outside of school. Their physical wellbeing and mental wellbeing really are highly valued and are as important to us as academic development.

We know that our children have struggled to retain mathematical concepts. In order to support children with this, we have ensured that each maths lesson revisits important aspects of their learning from the previous week, term and year.  

We follow White Rose Maths

Each lesson begins with a Flashback Four (FB4). 

This focuses on:
What we learnt earlier in the week
What we learnt last week
What we learnt in the last unit of work
What we learnt last year.

For further maths information please contact Mrs Hartley at bev.hartley@coopacademies.co.uk

We teach Phonics through Read Write Inc.

For further English (reading, writing, phonics) information please contact Mrs Rafferty at martha.rafferty@coopacademies.co.uk

We use a range of text to support and challenge children with their reading throughout daily lessons.  These develop and progress throughout each year group to ensure each year groups is challenged suitably as well as covering a variety of genres.

The reading schemes we use are:

Read Write Inc for Early years and KS1
Accelerated Reader for Year 2 onwards

As some of our children come into Friarswood with lower speaking and listening skills, our children start their education with a variety of speaking and learning opportunities to enhance this area, such as Helicopter stories and P4C.

Due to the issues over the previous years, we are well aware that children’s writing needs to develop. We will be doing this by using a plan that allows for a variety of genres to be taught and allowing children to experience writing in many different styles. All of the children take part in a ‘best write’ where they get to show off what they have learnt as well as using their own imagination to create a piece of writing.

Children have had less opportunity to travel and visit various places. In geography, we ensure that every lesson allows children the opportunity to locate the local area on a map or the country on a world map or globe. In history, the children are able to locate the period of time which they are learning about on a timeline helping them to understand the chronology of important historical periods.

Each subject has non-negotiables which ensure that our children cover the important elements of the subject and/or what they have struggled with and need to recap in order to move their learning forward.