At Mulberry West St Leonards Primary, our curriculum is created with every pupil in mind. Whatever your child’s talent and interest, our ambitious teaching and learning approach captures their interest and creates curious learners whose individual needs are met and nurtured within an environment that balances high expectations with a thirst for new knowledge. Each day, all our learners benefit from a wide breadth and depth of learning, whether this be around the core subjects of Reading, Writing and Maths, or the richness of a wider curriculum, covering subjects such as Science, Geography, History, PSHE and Art amongst others. Our approach to teaching early reading is underpinned by an approach called ‘Read Write Inc’ to support our phonics teaching as our youngest learners take their first steps on their reading journey. Daily reading incentives and supporting an early love of books form the building blocks of our approach in the earliest years of learning. This flourishes into the lifetime skill of reading resilience and a passion to read more and understand more, both in and out of school, which we foster through an approach called ‘Talk for Reading’ which works hand in hand with our writing approach, Talk for Writing. Talk for Writing is a whole class approach to writing that follows three key principles of how children learn best – Imitation, Innovation and Independent Application. This allows children to learn the text orally at first to internalise the text as a reader and understand its qualities and what excites us about it. Following this, children innovate and become playful with the text by using the tools and high quality language to then design and write their own versions before having the independence to then use these skills in culmination with all their previous learning to add more depth to writing each time they write, whether it is a newspaper report or an action packed narrative with an intriguing twist! Intrigue is also the foundation of our Maths curriculum as we use Maths Mastery to develop inquisitive mathematicians who problem solve through obtaining depth around understanding strategies that will embed lifelong confidence. Children strive to better understand mathematical processes and algebra from Reception, incorporating a concrete, abstract and pictorial means of calculating and showcasing their understanding before fully explaining their methods to develop their knowledge year on year, establishing learners that not only understand but can also articulate this with aplomb. Outside of the core learning, children are exposed to a wider curriculum which looks to explore their interests across a multitude of subjects, enriched further by theme days and weeks to ensure that children not only develop their knowledge further but can be fully integrated into the learning through trips, visitors and experiences that allow their education to become even more vivid and alive, fostering a level of curiosity and discussion that plays to each child’s strengths, considering the whole individual and their own interests. The culmination of all this learning ensures that children relish their seven year journey at Mulberry West St Leonards, building resilient, interested and reflective learners who are given a forum to be open minded and who persevere despite barriers to what they may not know yet. This is our Mulberry West St Leonards vision for every pupil in every subject on every day.
