Skip to content

Curriculum Overview

We aim to offer a broad, well-balanced curriculum for children aged 4-11 years based on the Foundation Stage Curriculum, the National Curriculum and the Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education in Suffolk Schools.

The timetable has been structured to focus on the key curriculum elements of Literacy and Maths.  Each subject is taught in a clearly defined session within the morning timetable.  

The afternoon sessions deal with the creative curriculum  where other elements of the national curriculum (Computing, Geography, History, Art, Music, PE etc) are taught either as discrete topics or integrated into overarching topics. These topics bring together all core subjects and place learning within a wider context.

Staff at Waveney Valley Schools aim to ensure that children know how they are progressing in the core elements of the curriculum and achieve this in a number of ways:

  • Pupil Progress Meetings - A one to one discussion to talk about progress and set individual learning targets.
  • Mid-term parent consultation evenings
  • Clearly defining the objectives of each lesson showing what is being learnt and why it is being learnt.

The school uses a system called Arbor to record and monitor the developments and progress levels and rates of each individual child.  This allows the class teacher to work with the senior leadership team to monitor progress and achievements on a regular basis

Parental Engagement

Parents have a vital role to play in their child’s learning. We expect parents to foster a love of learning in their children by modelling the learning behaviours which support learning e.g. reading books at home, talking together as a family. Parents can help by showing children the practical applications of the knowledge they gain at school e.g. calculating change when shopping, helping to read a map when out and about. Regular events such as our Parental Engagement sessions, Discover more/ Learn more with Mr Lea provide parents with an opportunity to find out more about how their children are taught. 

Your legal rights

Parents have the right to withdraw their children from religious education (RE) lessons, as per the 1988 Education Reform Act. This right applies to all pupils in all types of schools, including academies and free schools, unless they are withdrawn by their parents or have withdrawn themselves once reaching 18 years of age. 

Parents can withdraw their children from RE without giving any explanation, and the school has a duty to supervise them, but not to provide additional teaching or incur extra costs. If a pupil is withdrawn, the school must comply with the request until it is cancelled or retracted. It is good practice for schools to invite parents to discuss their written request and to provide suitable alternative work of a religious nature for the child(ren) to be completed at the time of the RE lesson.