School Curriculum

At Millfields C.E. Primary School, we help each child to aspire to their true potential in a happy and secure Christian environment. Guided by our core values of faith, respect, courtesy and endeavour, we are committed to providing pupils with exciting learning opportunities through a broad and balanced curriculum.

We aim to give pupils the opportunity to thrive in a range of subject areas and activities such as music and sport, alongside the core curriculum subjects. Our curriculum has been revised in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders including pupils, parents, staff, governors and external consultants, to ensure it reflects the content and challenge of the new curriculum for each year group.

Teachers, Teaching Assistants and Governors have received training in the key areas of curriculum change, with a particular focus on Maths, English – especially Reading and Phonics – and continue to meet regularly to review and observe the curriculum in action. This commitment ensures high standards of teaching and learning while also reflecting our vision as a Church school, supporting children’s academic, personal and spiritual development. 

EYFS

Our Foundation Stage department consists of our F1 and F2 classes (currently vertically grouped). In the mornings, children learn within their Foundation Stage group, and in the afternoons they join with Year 1 and Year 2 to form the Infant Class. The curriculum is carefully planned and sequenced to ensure that all children receive their full curriculum entitlement, with learning tailored to their stage of development.

We ensure that all staff follow the statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage and plan a wide range of exciting learning opportunities for children to meet the required standards. Guided by our school values of faith, respect, courtesy and endeavour, staff use accurate baseline assessments to plan creative, stimulating and developmentally appropriate experiences for our children both indoors and outdoors. These values are woven into everyday learning: children are encouraged to show faith in themselves as learners, to treat one another with respect and courtesy in play and exploration, and to show endeavour by persevering with new challenges.

Staff work closely as a team to share ideas and good practice and are also very much led by the children’s interests. As a Foundation Stage, we ensure that all children have the opportunity to spend quality time together in order to learn new skills from one another. Working together in this way also enhances transition between phases and ensures that the process is seamless for staff, children and their families.

We provide regular stay and play sessions for family members, giving them the opportunity to become familiar with their child’s learning environment and understand how our curriculum is delivered.

We use both formative and summative assessment to track children’s progress and identify next steps. Tapestry Online Learning Journal is used to communicate observations and assessments with parents/carers. This tool ensures that parents are kept fully informed of their children’s learning developments and are aware of how they can support their children’s learning at home. Parents/carers are also able to contribute their own news and media from home, which staff then use to inform assessments and deepen their knowledge and understanding of individual children.

English - Reading, Writing, Grammar and Phonics

.At Millfields CE Primary, English is at the heart of our school community and learning. Rooted in our Christian values of Faith, Respect, Courtesy, and Endeavour, we aim to nurture confident, compassionate communicators who can express themselves clearly and thoughtfully across all areas of life.

Reading is the foundation of our curriculum. From their very first day, children are encouraged to read widely and for pleasure as well as information. Our recently opened school library, alongside carefully curated classroom reading areas, offers children a rich and inviting environment to explore books that capture their interests and expand their horizons. We ensure that reading resources are refreshed regularly to support learning across all subjects and meet the diverse needs of our pupils.

In the early years at Millfields CE Primary, nursery children follow the Little Wandle Foundations for phonics, supported by Letters and Sounds Phase 1, focusing on listening skills, sound discrimination, and early language development to build a solid foundation for formal phonics. From reception, we follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds revised programme for phonics, providing a strong and systematic approach to developing essential decoding and blending skills.

Phonics teaching formally begins in Reception from week 2 to ensure a strong and consistent start. This teaching continues through Key Stage 1, with regular sessions using fully decodable books that link directly to phonics learning. These sessions help develop children’s fluency, prosody, and comprehension. Additional support is available as needed to ensure every child becomes a confident reader and speller.

As pupils progress into Key Stage 2, we build on these foundations with the Ready Steady Read Together programme from Literacy Counts. This research-based, structured approach develops children’s reading skills through high-quality fiction and non-fiction texts, focusing on vocabulary, inference, prediction, summarising, and understanding meaning in context. We provide targeted support for any child needing extra help to ensure all pupils become fluent, engaged readers ready to access the full curriculum.

Spelling is taught progressively from Year 3 using the Spelling Shed programme, which connects phonics knowledge to spelling rules, morphology, and etymology. This helps children understand word patterns and origins, deepening their spelling skills in a way that supports confident, accurate writing.

Our writing curriculum is designed to inspire creativity and skill, rooted in carefully chosen texts that engage our pupils and link with their broader learning. We use the Ready Steady Write programme to teach writing progressively and meaningfully, embedding grammar and punctuation within authentic contexts. Children are guided through the process of planning, drafting, editing, revising, and publishing their work, fostering pride in their writing and an understanding of writing as a craft. We adapt our teaching to meet the needs of all learners, ensuring every child has the opportunity to become a thoughtful and skilled writer.

We understand that handwriting is a key part of writing fluency. Using the Letter-Join scheme, we develop children’s fine motor skills and letter formation from the Foundation Stage, progressing through print to fluent cursive writing by the end of Year 4. This supports pupils in writing with legibility, speed, and confidence, enabling them to focus on expressing their ideas fully.

Oracy and spoken language are fundamental to our curriculum and Christian ethos. We nurture pupils’ ability to speak confidently, listen attentively, and engage respectfully with others. From the Foundation Stage, we assess and support language development using tools like WellComm and the Development Matters framework. As children grow, they build their oracy skills progressively through the National Curriculum spoken language objectives, developing clear expression, vocabulary, reasoning, and empathy. Opportunities to practise these skills are woven through classroom discussions, drama, presentations, debates, and collective worship—helping children become articulate, thoughtful communicators who value others' voices.

Vocabulary development is a central strand running through all subjects, carefully planned to introduce and revisit subject-specific and wider academic words in meaningful ways. This approach supports pupils in accessing new learning confidently and expressing themselves with clarity and precision.

Our English curriculum is designed to reflect the distinctive Christian character of Millfields CE Primary. We strive to develop not only academic skills but also the whole child—encouraging curiosity, resilience, and a love of learning that reflects our values and prepares pupils to serve their communities with respect and endeavour.

By combining a broad, balanced, and inclusive English curriculum with a nurturing Christian environment, we aim to inspire every child to reach their full potential as confident readers, writers, speakers, and listeners. 

Maths

In maths, we endeavour for all our children to leave us equipped with the mathematical knowledge and skills needed to be prepared for the next stage of their lives. In order to achieve this, we feel it is vital for children to have developed the strength of character and confidence needed to make decisions and to have a rich vocabulary which will help them to communicate and articulate their thinking. If our children are to succeed as lifelong learners, they will have no limits to their curiosity, a thirst for knowledge and a desire for new experiences.

To support them with this, we aim to offer high-quality teaching and learning to develop the reasoning skills of all pupils and foster positive attitudes to maths. An inclusive and collaborative approach to maths teaching allows adequate time to understand and discuss key concepts, helping us to build children’s self-esteem and confidence within the subject. Children within the class all access the same learning content and adaptation is by means of support and depth of learning as opposed to by task. We value the importance of enabling our children to reach their potential and will never put a ceiling on their learning.

Please check out our maths information section to learn more…

Computing

At our school, Computing is taught in conjunction with Hi-Impact and the Purple Mash curriculum to ensure children gain a broad, engaging and progressive experience. Through programming, data handling, digital creativity and research tasks, pupils develop confidence and resilience in applying technology to everyday life. Our school values of endeavour and faith are central to this approach: children are encouraged to persevere when faced with challenges, to believe in their ability to solve problems, and to approach technology with curiosity and creativity. We also emphasise respect and courtesy in collaborative tasks, ensuring that children learn to work responsibly with peers both in person and in digital spaces. Our Christian vision underpins Computing by promoting dignity, respect and the opportunity for every learner to flourish in a safe and supportive environment.

Online Safety

Online safety is embedded throughout the curriculum and across wider school life, ensuring children understand both the opportunities and risks of the digital world. Working alongside Hi-Impact consultancy, we provide pupils, parents and carers with up-to-date knowledge, resources and strategies to use technology safely and responsibly. Age-appropriate lessons, pupil voice and resources such as ThinkUKNow and Safe Skills are used to build awareness and confidence online. Our values of respect and courtesy are explicitly taught in the context of digital communication, while faith and endeavour underpin children’s resilience in responding to potential risks. By embedding online safety within our Christian vision and values, we ensure that pupils are prepared to act with wisdom and integrity in the online world as well as in their daily lives.

Science

Throughout school the focus of science teaching is to enable pupils to broaden their scientific view of the world around them. They will be able to do this through exploring, talking about, testing and developing ideas about everyday phenomena and the relationships between living things and familiar environments, and by beginning to develop their ideas about functions, relationships and interactions. The children are encouraged to ask their own questions about what they observe and make some decisions about which types of scientific enquiry are likely to be the best ways of answering them, including observing changes over time, noticing patterns, grouping and classifying things, carrying out simple comparative and fair tests and finding things out using secondary sources of information. The children are encouraged to draw simple conclusions and use some scientific language, first, to talk about and, later, to write about what they have found out. As a school we use the Collins SNAP Science Scheme of work which is supported by the Association for Science as well as PLAN assessments. Each unit is linked with a ‘real life’ scientist to emphasise how and why it is taught.

Foundation Subjects

All Foundation Subjects are taught as individual subjects with a topic link with the exception of Foreign Languages, PE and PSHE. Subject leaders provide medium term planning for teachers and this is planned carefully into the annual timetable.

All pupils from Year 3 to Year 6 learn Spanish. We also seek to extend knowledge and understanding of Spanish life, culture and customs.

RSE

Our R.S.E. curriculum is designed to ensure that children are able to keep themselves safe and develop the skills required to be active, tolerant and responsible citizens who are able to make a positive contribution to the world around them. We aim to ensure that children develop a sense of pride in British culture and heritage, as well as an understanding, respect for and appreciation of the diverse and rich nature of Britain today.  To support this, we use Picture News to “provide opportunities for children to learn from our world and develop respect for others’ beliefs, feelings and faith. They encourage exploration, discussion, challenge and inspire children to learn.” The resources give relevant and meaningful links to British values and support children’s personal development.

As a school, we are so pleased to be using Jigsaw. Jigsaw adopts a creative approach to strengthen emotional health, build character and develop resilience in our pupils. The programme allows children to develop a positive mind-set and healthy emotional self. Through the topics covered, the children learn to love and accept themselves, as well as to love and respond well to others. The themes are based around the ideas of: feeling valued, forgiveness, considering others and showing empathy, being thoughtful and not giving up when faced with a challenge. We also use the My Happy Mind resources to develop emotional well-being and mental health.

Sex & Relationship Education is taught in line with the locally agreed Wirral syllabus and staff are supported by our School Nurse. Parents are consulted about the curriculum and are provided with the opportunity to review materials and discuss concerns prior to lessons taking place in school.

RE

Religious Education is a valued and essential part of life at Millfields. Our RE curriculum We follow the Questful RE syllabus, which is built around big questions and encourages children to think deeply about faith, belief, and the world around them. Questful RE uses three strands — theology (beliefs), philosophy (what they mean), and social science (how beliefs impact lives) — giving children multiple lenses through which to learn.

Lessons are planned to be progressive and sequenced so that pupils build on prior understanding; knowledge and vocabulary are revisited; connections are made between other faiths and worldviews; similarities and differences are explored.

We have a strong partnership with St Mary’s Church Eastham and St David’s Church, which supports our spiritual and moral development. Regular visits to these churches, plus visits from external bodies (for example the Bromborough Bible Society), enrich worship and topic work, making learning real and grounded in community

Religious Education also plays a key role in helping pupils live out our school motto: faith, respect, courtesy, and endeavour. Through RE, children learn to appreciate difference, care for creation, and see themselves as part of a wider community—locally and globally.

Learning outside the Classroom and at Home

We use online resources to support children’s learning in school and at home. These currently include TT Rockstars, Spelling Shed, Maths Shed, Code Studio, Purple Mash including setting the children 2Do tasks for the children to access at home. Within Early Years, Tapestry is used to communicate with parents.

We work with external partners including Edsential to enrich learning in several areas of the curriculum, including Physical Education and Music to enhance learning and outside of the classroom and through extra- curricular clubs.

Visits & Residential Trips

We include termly trips and high quality learning experiences to enrich the curriculum and provide opportunities for children to explore learning beyond the classroom. Residential trips provide children with opportunities to develop confidence and life skills including personal organisation, independence, resourcefulness and resilience. Trips are subsidised by school to ensure that all pupils are able to access these opportunities.

Assessment

Assessment is an integral and vital part of the teaching and learning process. Assessments are linked to the curriculum to evaluate the progress children make with regards to extending their knowledge, skills and understanding. Teachers use formative and summative assessment to plan next steps of learning for pupils to ensure that they are prepared for the next phase of education in line with the School Aims.

Further information

Further information regarding national curriculum requirements is available online at www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum.