Curriculum
Our curriculum design is driven by the context of the community we serve. Our children come from a diverse range of backgrounds and so our mission is to meet their very different needs, whatever they may be, and ensure they all flourish and live ‘life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10).
We are guided in achieving this aim by our vision, which is neatly summed up in a gardening metaphor:
“This is what we are about: We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.”
We aim to teach our children skills that will enable them to be a success now and throughout their life, so that our ‘Learning Today’ enables us to ‘Live Tomorrow.’
Our staff are committed to delivering this vision through the following values:
- Realising Potential (Aspiration)
- Developing Character (Resilience)
- Working Together (Tolerance)
- Serving Others (Respect)
These values provide a framework for our curriculum and are the core aims of everything we do at the William Alvey School. Our staff deliver high-quality learning opportunities, along with enriching experiences, which brings learning to life. Our school curriculum predominantly follows the National Curriculum. However, we embrace a bespoke local perspective to nurture a pride in our locality and its history, whilst promoting and celebrating diversity and equality.
Our staff have created a bespoke and sequential curriculum that highlights key learning in each subject, informed by educational research. Through careful sequencing, and utilising retrieval practice, a focus is placed on committing learning to long-term memory so that children know and remember more. Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction are at the heart of teaching and learning at William Alvey, with reviews, small steps, questioning and guided practice at the forefront of teaching. Teachers meet the needs of all their children through adaptive teaching, utilising a range of quality first teaching strategies.
English and Maths underpin our curriculum at the Alvey and are taught discretely. The development of strong speech and language skills is a key focus for our children when they begin their Reception year. Our EYFS team have a focus on developing language and vocabulary through high quality interactions and specific intervention programmes. This is supplemented by language and literature rich learning for children across all curriculum areas.
The development of a rich, and varied vocabulary, is pursued in English and French. Our children begin to learn French from Year 1. This early start means many of our children have strong French speaking skills by the time they leave us in Year 6. These skills, and enthusiasm, are built upon through real life experiences. For example, many of our older children go to France on alternate years to spend time with children at a school we have close links with. Our friends from France then come and visit us.
The development of reading and writing skills are a priority at William Alvey. We follow the ‘Talk for Reading’ and ‘Talk for Writing’ schemes of work, as well as the DFE recommended ‘Rocket Phonics’ program. Our reading aims are to get children reading as soon as possible, as well as fostering a love of reading. We have the same aims for writing.
Maths teaching follows a mastery approach using the ‘Maths No Problem’ scheme of work. The Alvey was an early adopter of the mastery approach, and it is now securely embedded across all year groups. ‘Maths No Problem’ focusses on broadening the mathematical skills of all our children so that they are better equipped to solve reasoning problems as they move through their education.
Most of our foundation subjects are taught discretely through the Chris Quigley scheme of work, which goes into greater depth, in terms of developing knowledge and skills, than the national curriculum. We focus on skills and milestones so that all children can achieve a thorough understanding of each subject. Where possible, we link learning to our local area and other subjects without losing sight of the need to teach subject specific knowledge and skills.
The success of our curriculum is built upon quality first teaching and the high-quality relationships that exist between children and their teachers. Alvey staff prioritise getting to know the children, adapting their teaching to suit each child. Spending time on developing these relationships ensures high standards of behaviour for learning across the school.
Building children’s cultural capital is a crucial element of the Alvey curriculum. We strive to ensure all our children have rich and fulfilling learning experiences. Visits and residentials are embedded in our curriculum offer, making full use of our local area and encouraging children to become invested in their community. These opportunities cover a wide range of experiences, including museums, parks, places of worship, environmental education centres and the seaside.
We are proud of our history and being citizens of Sleaford town. We celebrate this in several ways. For example, we host a 1940s day every summer, which is a community event to celebrate that period in our history. This event allows us to show off our very own air raid shelter, as well as showcase our pride in our parents who serve in the armed forces. This is complemented by our ‘Bluey’ club, which is for our children whose parent(s) serve in the armed forces, of which there are traditionally anywhere between 50 and 100.
We also celebrate ‘Alvey day’ once a year, to commemorate the formation of our school and its Christian origins.
Our curriculum is designed to actively teach our children lifelong skills. For example, we deliberately teach our children the skills of resilience and Growth mindset. Our children positively embrace mistakes as part of the learning process and regularly use the phrase ‘I can’t do it …… yet’ when faced with a new challenge.
The development of our children’s life skills are also encouraged through the active teaching of spirituality. Our children know they will experience ‘Ow’, ‘Wow’ and ‘Now’ moments in life and have the skills to either get past ‘Ow’ moments or embrace ‘Wow’ and ‘Now’ moments.
Our children know they can be a force for good and achieve this in several ways. For example, our children have a clear understanding of ‘Courageous Advocacy’, justice and responsibility. They are part of ‘big’ and ‘every day’ positive change. For example, our community took part in an event in school in Summer 2024, where we all made sleeping bags for the homeless out of crisp packets. I see children who are kind to one another and take responsibility for their local area by picking up rubbish, on a daily basis.
Music is a vital part of the William Alvey experience. It has been proven that music plays a key role in brain development, nurturing language, motor skills, emotional intelligence and collaboration skills. We prioritise music within our curriculum by providing weekly singing sessions for all year groups, weekly choral worship, as well as the chance to learn a variety of instruments with our specialist music teachers. Our choir sing in a variety of local settings and are very highly regarded. Listening to our children sing is an honour and a privilege.
Sports is another essential part of life at the Alvey. We know sport is good for health but also encourages the development of positive character traits, such as resilience. Our sporting offer reflects our diverse community. We have a strong competitive sports offer, which is highly valued because we know it provides children with motivation and determination to achieve a goal, perseverance to overcome a multitude of challenges, as well as giving an understanding that hard work and commitment leads to a greater chance of success. This links with our idea of ‘Learning today, for living tomorrow.’
However, we know competitive sports are not for everyone. To meet this need, we offer a wide range of inclusive sports, and clubs, to our children. One of their favourites is our dance classes.
All our teaching, and support staff, run different clubs throughout the year. This diversity of offer goes a long way to meeting the needs, and interests, of all our children and includes:
Woodland Wonders Guinness World Record Metal Detecting Homework
Mindful Colouring Young Carers ADHD BSL Barn Buddies
Film club Football Cricket Computing Art Guinea Pig Tennis
KS2 choir Infant choir Tag rugby 11+ Netball Science Hockey
We want our children to be proud of being part of the Alvey family, and they are. I can see that with the pride they sing our school song and embrace the concept of ‘Once an Alvian, always an Alvian.’
Please follow the links below to find out more about the learning in each subject in school.
Should you have any queries about the curriculum at William Alvey, please feel free to ask any questions you like, either in person or via email.
Mr Farrington
Headteacher
Year Group Overviews - can be seen in each subject overview