The PE curriculum and vision

We enable the children to communicate in both oral and written work confidently and clearly. This allows the children to use writing to express themselves coherently, adapting their language and style for the context, purpose and audience at hand.

Children will learn to apply their reading skills in everyday life. By developing a love of reading for pleasure and the ability to access learning in a variety of subjects, we know that our children will be able to communicate effectively in the wider world.

We strive to equip our children with the skills and knowledge they need for their school career and beyond.

Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know.

Grammar

At Manadon Vale , we use the ‘No Nonsense Grammar and sentence toolkit’ so that grammar teaching links seamlessly with teaching children how to improve their writing.  This has had a positive impact on the children’s learning by putting the grammar teaching into a context and allowing the children to experiment with it within their own writing.  

Children are taught tools/ symbols that represent specific grammar content. This analogy helps them to understand the terminology as well as when and how to use it effectively.  

Writing

At Manadon Vale, our writing curriculum is designed to enable our children to become imaginative, engaging and precise writers who show control as well as adaptability in style when asked to write for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. At the core of our curriculum is the belief that children should be taught using high quality texts that vary in genre, show cultural diversity and are matched to the needs of individual classes of children.  

By using this structure to shape our writing curriculum, the children are presented with a model which enables them to understand authors’ choices and intentions, demonstrating what an effective piece of writing looks like, as well as providing a solid understanding of grammar; this provides the children with clear end points and outcome pieces to work towards. Through teaching writing skills alongside these high-quality texts, children are shown how the choices that they make as a writer impact on the reader in differing ways.  

This curriculum is taught with a logical progression of texts so that children can build on their prior learning in a systematic way to ensure that intended knowledge and skills are acquired. 

At Manadon Vale , our pupils’ writing journey begins in the early years and sequentially builds knowledge and skills, year-on-year.   

Reading

A reader from Manadon Vale Primary School will be able to:  

  • Read at an age expected standard.  
  • Apply their phonics knowledge when reading as well as other strategies to identify unknown words. For example, reading around the word for meaning, breaking it up into parts etc.  
  • Develop reading for pleasure that lasts a lifetime.  
  • Experience a wide breath of books, including a range of genres and themes.  
  • Understand a variety of text types including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.  
  • Have a good understanding for a wide range of vocabulary.  
  • Retrieve information from the text through skimming and scanning.  
  • Read between the lines to make accurate inferences. 

All EYFS and KS1 will use the ELS programme to support their reading at school. Each child is matched with a book according to their ability and one book of the sounds they are learning each week. As the children transition to Year 2 and are confident with their decoding, blending and segmenting, they will move on to Accelerated Reader scheme.

Renaissance Accelerated Reader

Renaissance Accelerated Reader balances students' independent reading practice with nonfiction reading and close-reading skills practice. It is a computer-based program that schools may use to monitor reading practice and progress. It helps teachers guide children to books that are at their individual reading levels. 

Children ready for this scheme will be quizzed at 3 points in the year to answer a series of retrieval, prediction and inference skills. This will then point them to a ZPD ( Zone of Proximal development) so the children know which level reading books to read. They can read as many books as they like during the week and at the end of the book,  will take a short quiz to check if they've understood it.

Goals / targets are set using a child's ZPD level and the time provided for reading practice, this ensures each child's target is personalised and relevant to their individual ability in reading.

1148112025259377_1102570115212839
🎅🏻Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!🎅🏻 Wishing all our Manadon family a joyful and peaceful festive season. Thank you for your incredible support throughout the year. We look forward to seeing you all on Monday, 6th January 2025! 🎄✨
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1101459618657222
Foundation Stage enjoyed a cosy Christmas afternoon to celebrate their first term at school! We are so proud of them all!
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1100918295378021
Year 5 were challenged to build a wooden tower for their DT project. We used New York as our inspiration and we think you'll agree that they did a terrific job! The children had to design, plan, measure, saw and then build their towers. We needed resilience, patience, luck ... and a good sense of humour! Well done, Year 5! 🌟🤩
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1100904478712736
We had a lovely, Christmassy end of term day in Dolphin class today - extra playtime, show & tell, Christmas crafts and a mini disco! Thank you for all of our lovely cards & gifts - very kind! We wish you all a very happy Christmas & New Year Xx
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1100843968718787
Way back on the Year 3 Transition Day in the summer, Coral Class were asked to design a winter hat. At the time they thought that Mrs Harden had perhaps forgotten what season it was. However, today they had a very special visit from Mrs Harden's Mum, who had been working hard to knit all of their designs! They absolutely loved seeing their designs turned into unique Christmas gifts. The biggest thank you to Mrs Harden's Mum and also to Mrs Gee and Mrs Ladd who made all the pom poms for the top of their hats. A very happy Christmas from Coral Class 🎄⭐
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1100227898780394
A huge 'thank you!' to all the grown-ups who came to support the Christmas performances over the last 2 weeks! All the children were absolutely brilliant and we are so proud of them! 👏🌟 One more day! 🎄
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1099320618871122
Year 1 have been measuring length and height using non-standard and standard units of measure. The children worked collaboratively to measure using rulers-recording in centimetres.
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1098014939001690
🎄🎼 A gentle reminder to all KS2 children to wear school uniforms tomorrow! 🥰🎄
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1095713555898495
🎼🎄 Music Club were *chefs kiss* perfection at The Lord Mayor's Carol Concert at St Andrew's Ministry this morning! The grown ups shed a few tears, they sounded so beautiful - hoping to share the audio from our songs soon! Have a fabulous weekend, Music Club! You deserve it 🌟🌟🌟
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1095522492584268
Well done to the netball team this morning. They played brilliantly as a team!
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1095429862593531
🎉 Year 2's Great Fire of London Reenactment! 🔥 This term, Year 2 has had an amazing time learning about the Great Fire of London and its history. We even recreated the event ourselves! 🔥🏠 From building our own model houses to watching the fire spread, it was a hands-on way to experience history and understand how the fire changed London forever. Well done, Year 2! 👏
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1095067182629799
🎼🎄💚 Music Club had the best time singing at the Home Park Carol Service - Manadon were absolutely fantastic and we are so, so proud of them!🌟 A special 'thank you' to all our families, friends and staff who braved the traffic to come and support the children. 🥰 Two concerts down, 1 more to go! 💙🎼
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1094679256001925
What wonderful performances by Foundation Stage and Key Stage One. We are SO proud of Seahorses and Turtles! 🎄
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1094606816009169
Year 6 Christmas lunch was enjoyed by all of the children. 🎄🎅
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale
1148112025259377_1094546609348523
Seahorses and Turtles loved Christmas jumper day and enjoyed our yummy lunch! A big thank you to the kitchen staff 👏🏽
View on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Manadonvale