Early Years Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1 & Key Stage 2

Thorntree Primary School is one-form entry with one class for each age group covering Reception, Key Stage One and Key Stage Two classes. Our classes are arranged as follows:

Early Years Foundation Stage - Nursery and Reception

Staff in our EYFS plan for our children's needs based on the three Prime and four Specific areas of Learning and Development from the statutory EYFS Curriculum:

(Prime Areas)

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development

• Physical Development

• Communication and Language

(Specific Areas)

• Literacy

• Mathematics

• Understanding the World

• Expressive Arts and Design

Children across the phase learn through well-planned and resourced play opportunities and enabling environments both indoors and outside which motivate children to plan and initiate their own independent activities. Children also regularly engage in activities led by adults.

We teach phonics using Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Systematic Synthetic Phonics Programme. We begin by teaching children grapheme-phoneme correspondence so that they know what sound each individual letter makes. Alongside this we teach the skill of blending so that children can read words made up of these sounds. Once children can read words by blending we send home phonetically decodable books so that reading can be shared with parents and carers. To encourage reading for pleasure, children in Reception and Year 1 can choose a class library book to take home, and children from Year 2 upwards choose a book from the school library.

Links to the Reception curriculum can be found in the 'Teaching and Learning' tab in the header above.

Key Stage 1 - Years 1 and 2

Children in Years 1 to 6 follow the National Curriculum, which is statutory.  The National Curriculum Subjects are:

Key Stage 1 is slightly more formal than the Foundation Stage so to ease children in gently there is a transition phase at the beginning of Year 1. This helps them settle into the routines of studying subjects in discrete lessons.

We teach daily phonics lessons following Little Wandle Letters and Sounds programme.

At the end of Year 1 the children take part in a statutory national phonics screen.

Links to the Years 1 and 2 curriculum can be found in the 'Teaching and Learning' tab in the header above.

Key Stage 2 - Years 3, 4, 5 and 6

Children in Years 3 to 6 follow the National Curriculum, which is statutory.  The National Curriculum Subjects are:

At Thorntree we are keen to encourage other areas of learning too. The children in Year 3 and 4 have instrumental lessons each week and all pupils learn French. There is a variety of after-school and lunchtime clubs too to further widen their horizons. 

In Year 6 pupils attend a residential school journey.

National Curriculum tests (Standard Assessment Tests) KEY STAGE 2 

Key Stage 2 pupils are assessed in Year 6 when they are 10/11 years old. These tests are always in May. Teachers work hard to ensure pupils are well-prepared for the SATs. The children are assessed according to the 'Expected Standards' for their year group and parents are informed of their results. For more detailed information about assessment in the school please refer to the Assessments Page under the Information tab.

At the end of Key Stage 2 children move onto secondary school and we help with this process through holding ‘transition information’ evenings and by distributing information supplied for you by the Royal Borough of Greenwich. 

Links to the Years 3,4,5 and 6 curriculum can be found in the 'Teaching and Learning' tab in the header above.