We believe in children. We believe children should laugh and learn. We believe children should play and progress.
We believe all children should stand tall, reach high and love learning.
Children are at the very heart of our curriculum. Their curiosity, ambitions, and potential shape everything we do, ensuring that learning is a lifelong journey. From the moment they join us, we nurture their growth—in the classroom and beyond, through every lesson, every friendship, and every new discovery. Whether they are learning together or independently, on the playground or online, we believe that every moment is an opportunity to inspire, challenge, and help them flourish.
At Bowerham Primary & Nursery School & Baby Unit we:
- Ensure all children have access to a fun and engaging, ambitious and creative curriculum that widens their life experiences
- Develop confident and independent learners with motivation, curiosity and a love of learning
- Ensure all children learn about and demonstrate the British Values of tolerance, mutual respect, individual liberty, democracy and rule of law
- While respecting differences including gender, ethnicity, religion and ability.
- Nurture, develop and challenge children to be aspirational and secure within themselves to prepare them for their future
We believe:
- in providing an exciting, challenging and stimulating learning journey that is personalised for every child – our outstanding staff ensure all our children are motivated, engaged and inspired to fulfil their potential by removing barriers to learning and ensuring teaching is rich, diverse and innovative.
- all children thrive by learning in a safe and supportive environment – we encourage our children to reflect honestly on their performance, question their next steps and be prepared to take risks in, and responsibility for, their own learning.
- that every moment is a chance to learn, and that no moment should be lost – by focusing on our unique ‘Bowerham Family’ we provide countless opportunities to grow and develop the ‘whole’ child; forming a range of relationships across school, celebrating personal achievements and building independence, resilience and self-esteem.
- in collaborative learning – that working together with shared interests ignites children’s learning, promotes tolerance and mutual respect, celebrates differences and prepares our children for the challenges of life after primary school.
- talent should be nurtured and challenged to grow – we work tirelessly with our local community to create novel and meaningful experiences to stretch our more able children, from succeeding in sports and shining in science to powerful performances in drama and music; ability is cherished and celebrated.
- in equipping children with strategies to know more, learn more, and remember more – by embedding metacognitive teaching approaches, including pre-learning, revisiting concepts, and focusing on knowledge retention, we support children in securing their learning in their long-term memory.
National Curriculum
You can find out more about the National Curriculum which we follow at the Department of Education’s website here.
Writing and Literacy at Bowerham
At Bowerham Primary and Nursery School, literacy is central to everything we do. Strong reading, writing, speaking and listening skills help children to understand the world around them, share their ideas and succeed across the curriculum.
Our approach to writing is practical, engaging and child-focused. We want children to enjoy writing and to feel confident expressing themselves, while also learning the skills they need to write clearly and accurately. Writing is taught progressively from Nursery through to Year 6, so children build on what they already know as they move through school.
Teachers plan regular opportunities for children to write for different purposes and audiences. Lessons include time for discussion, planning, writing and improving work. Vocabulary, sentence structure, spelling and handwriting are taught explicitly, and children are encouraged to take pride in their work and see writing as something that can always be improved.
How We Plan for Writing
Writing across the school is planned using Lancashire guidance. We use the Lancashire Assessment and Planning System (LAPS) to support the planning of writing units and the Key Learning Indicators of Performance (KLIPs) to assess children’s writing.
In EYFS, children begin their writing journey through talk, play, drawing and mark making. We use the Drawing Club approach to develop children’s confidence, imagination and enjoyment of writing. Through shared stories, discussion and drawing, children learn to generate ideas, use new vocabulary and begin to understand how marks and symbols carry meaning. Early transcription skills, such as letter formation and spelling through phonics, are developed alongside early composition.
In Year 1, Drawing Club continues to support children as they develop greater independence and confidence. Children gradually move from oral storytelling and drawing into sentence writing, applying phonics to spell words and beginning to organise ideas into simple sequences. Over the course of the year, children transition into more formal writing units when they are ready, ensuring early skills are secure before expectations increase.
From Year 2 onwards, writing is taught through clearly structured units following the Lancashire sequence of reading, gathering content, planning, writing and publishing. Children write for a range of purposes and audiences across fiction, non-fiction and poetry, building stamina and control over their writing. Transcription skills, such as spelling, handwriting and punctuation, are developed alongside composition skills, including sentence structure, cohesion and organisation.
In Key Stage 2, children are supported to write with increasing accuracy, fluency and independence. Units become more complex, with a greater focus on authorial choices, vocabulary selection and adapting writing for different audiences and purposes. Children are encouraged to edit and improve their work thoughtfully, using feedback to refine both technical accuracy and content.
Assessment is ongoing throughout the school. Teachers use KLIPs to identify strengths and next steps, picking up misconceptions quickly and addressing them through targeted interventions, short focused writing tasks and subsequent lessons. This ensures clear progression and consistent development in writing from EYFS through to the end of Key Stage 2.
Spellings
Spelling is taught in a structured way across the school.
In Key Stage 1, children are grouped according to their phonics knowledge. Spelling homework is closely linked to the phonics they are learning in class, helping them apply sounds accurately in their reading and writing.
In Key Stage 2, children are given spelling words each week as part of their homework, which are tested on Fridays. Every half term, children also complete a ‘Big Spell’ to help consolidate spelling patterns and rules over time.
We use Spelling Shed in KS2 to support the teaching of spelling. This scheme builds skills step by step and helps children practise and revisit spelling patterns regularly.
The Golden Purple Pen Award
Each week, every class awards the Golden Purple Pen to a child who has shown good progress or effort in their writing. This might be for improved handwriting, more ambitious vocabulary, or perseverance when editing their work.
Children who receive the award are given a certificate, have their work displayed in class, and are able to use the Golden Purple Pen in their writing the following week. This helps to recognise effort and encourage positive attitudes towards writing.
Just Write and Just Talk
Children are sometimes set a ‘Just Write’ task on Showbie, based on the needs of their year group. This may happen up to twice per half term.
Before completing the task in school, we ask families to spend time talking through the topic with their child over the weekend. This ‘Just Talk’ time helps children organise their ideas, develop vocabulary and feel prepared for writing independently the following week.
Reading at Bowerham
Early Reading
Did you know that if children know eight nursery rhymes by the time they’re four years old, they’re usually among the best readers by the time they’re eight? Rhyming helps children to break words down and to hear the sounds that make up words in preparation for reading and writing.
To be ready to start reading, children need to have a variety of skills in place. These early reading skills include matching, rhyming, awareness of phonics and the skills associated with language development such as listening, attention, alliteration and sound discrimination.
Reading in the EYFS
At Bowerham we believe it’s never too early to read with a child. Sharing books, stories and rhymes is a daily part of learning to read, this not only promotes a love of reading but also an awareness of how information can be retrieved from text. Learning how to read is magical, for both children and their parents.
Early Phonics
In Nursery we introduce Phase One Phonics from the Red Rose Letters and Sounds document. This phase provides children with lots of speaking and listening activities which are essential to early reading development. The aim of phase one is for children to become attuned to the sounds around them as they engage in lots of rhyme and rhythmic activities. This is something we explore in lots of detail within Nursery to ensure these basic skills are embedded before the children move on to Phase Two in Reception Class. Parents can help their children at home by singing lots of nursery rhymes and sharing stories together every single day.
In Reception Class the children move on to Phase Two, Three, Four and begin Phase Five Phonics from the Red Rose Letters and Sounds document. Year 2 build on Phase 6 phonics and for children who did not pass the phonic screening check extra provision is provided. An active, fun approach is taken to teaching within each phase.
You can find a helpful video for ks1 Phonics here
Reading at home
Children are first introduced to books without words. These are shared both in class as well as at home with parents. Books without words allow the children to develop their speaking skills as well as their imagination. Once children begin to blend and segment words and are working confidently within phase two phonics, phase two appropriate books are sent home. Books are carefully selected and aligned to ensure that children can practise identifying and blending the sounds they have already learnt.
We use a wide range of reading schemes to ensure breadth and depth in the early stages of reading. Our schemes include The Oxford Reading Tree, Collins and Heinemann. Children are assessed on a regular basis to ensure that they are reading at the right level. Children should be able to read the books sent home to an adult with ease and should be able to discuss the content of the book and make predictions. As each child progresses through the phonic phases and become more confident with a wider variety of sounds, they will receive books of suitable challenge, again including only familiar sounds.
Books of a higher level are used within Guided Reading session in school to teach new skills and to make sure that children are making progress. We believe it is important that children have a rich diet of texts so we ensure that our reading schemes are supplemented by a selection of other reading material. All classes have a weekly trip to the school library where they are encouraged to read a wide selection of books. Throughout school, each year group has an author of the term or half term each class has a class novel that is shared throughout the week.
Online Reading – Bug Club – A finely-levelled Reading Scheme
‘Bug Club’ is used to compliment our physical range of books. We blend this online reading scheme with the hard copies to ensure our children read a wide range of books in a variety of ways whilst building their comprehension, inference and understanding.
KS2 Plagues of Reading
In Key Stage Two, after children have completed the Oxford Reading Tree and Collins schemes, children progress onto our ‘plagues of reading’ scheme. This can be found here: https://teachlikeachampion.org/wp-content/uploads/5-Plagues-Reading-Spine.pdf This consists of a broad variety of books separated into the following genres:
- Archaic texts – these tend to be older texts, in which vocabulary and sentences structures are different to those, typical of modern writing, e.g. The Railway Children, or The Secret Garden.
- Non-linear time sequences – these texts do not necessarily follow a chronological order, they may have flashbacks, or may move forward irregular time sequences, e.g. The Butterfly Lion, or Holes.
- Narratively complex – these texts have narrators that do not necessarily follow convention, or are not who/what you might expect, e.g., Fantastic Mr Fox, or War Horse.
- Symbolic texts or complex plots – these texts may have a theme, a moral, or a lesson threaded through the writing, e.g. The Iron Man, or Harry Potter
- Resistant texts – these are designed to be particularly difficult to understand and require lots of work to unpick meaning, e.g. The Red Tree, or Jabberwocky (poem).
Our aim is to encourage all children to read a range of quality texts, immersing themselves in different worlds, cultures, styles and literary structures; this will improve their ability to decode, their fluency and skills of comprehension, and in turn their ability to plan, draft and compose age-expected pieces of writing, across a variety of text types.
Children also have a “free reader” that they read alongside, and they have an allotted a library session in which they can visit the school library and read for pleasure.
Support for parents at home
https://literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/
Maths at Bowerham
At Bowerham, we believe that fluency in number is the foundation of all mathematical learning. Across the school, our maths curriculum is carefully planned and sequenced using the White Rose progression documents and resources, ensuring that key knowledge and skills build year on year in a clear and structured way.
In all year groups, we use BIG Maths CLIC sheets to support children’s progression in arithmetic skills, alongside a range of activities designed to develop number fluency and confidence. Children learn and practise key facts such as addition and subtraction facts, as well as times tables and related division facts, helping them to recall number facts quickly and efficiently when tackling new concepts.
Our teaching approach follows a consistent structure:
-
Prior learning and key strategies are revisited regularly
-
New methods are modelled clearly by the teacher
-
Children are supported through guided practice
-
Pupils then work independently to apply their new learning
In addition, we explicitly teach reasoning and problem-solving skills each week, beginning in the Early Years Foundation Stage, so that children learn to explain their thinking, make connections, and tackle unfamiliar problems with confidence.
Key Stage 1 (KS1)
In KS1, maths is taught through a range of engaging activities which help children develop secure understanding. Teachers use a wide variety of concrete resources (such as counters, cubes and number lines) before moving on to pictorial representations and then abstract methods. Once a skill has been taught, children practise and apply it in different contexts, including both indoor and outdoor learning opportunities.
Key Stage 2 (KS2)
In KS2, we continue to use concrete resources where appropriate to introduce new concepts, alongside pictorial and abstract representations, to ensure learning is accessible and secure. Once new learning has taken place, children develop fluency in that skill before applying and extending their understanding through varied problem-solving and reasoning tasks, helping to deepen their knowledge and make meaningful mathematical connections.
RE Curriculum and the right to withdraw from religious education and/or collective worship
Parents have the right to withdraw their children from religious education and/or collective worship.
From age 16, pupils can choose for themselves to opt out of collective worship if they wish. However, they cannot opt out of receiving religious education without parental consent until they are 18.