The Porchester Curriculum

At Porchester, our Curriculum is broad and balanced, rich and varied, providing our children with a high-quality education and experiences that support and develop the whole child. We are committed to making every day count for all children that will not only ensure they are ready for the next stage in their education, but also prepare them for life in what will be their modern Britain. 

At Porchester Junior School, our curriculum vision is to develop our pupils’ independence, resilience and aspirations; knowledge and understanding of the wider world and vocabulary.

Our Porchester Curriculum is driven by all stakeholders, including a specific Pupil Leadership Curriculum Team.

Curriculum Leader - Mrs Natasha Green

Pupil Leadership - The Curriculum Team

Governor Leader - Mrs Amanda Wheldon

Long Term Plans

If you would like to find out more about our Porchester curriculum, please speak to your child's class teacher or contact our curriculum lead (Mrs Natasha Green) via the office email. 

Our approach to Early Reading and Phonics

Phonics

Whilst all of our children will have been explicitly taught phonics at KS1, at Porchester, we recognise the importance of continuing to embed phonic knowledge throughout KS2. We want to ensure all children are secure in their phonic knowledge as soon as possible and our learning environments and interventions reflect this.

• In our early reading learning environment, phonics displays consist of a large alphabetic code chart and flashcards showing previously taught sounds, as well as sounds being currently taught.
• In all classes, alphabetic code charts are available for all children to access and children receiving targeted interventions will have their own laminated copy.
• In all classes, phonic sound buttons are used to identify graphemes, digraphs and split digraphs on Spelling displays.

As part of the transition into Year 3, all children complete a phonics screening to identify any gaps in their phonics knowledge and these are targeted through a systematic and rigorous phonics catch up programme during the Autumn term. This involves daily lessons following the DfE accredited No Nonsense Phonics programme. For those children identified as needing further support, intensive 1:1 interventions are targeted at individual needs. These may include difficulties with blending, segmenting or gaps with individual GPCs and tricky words.

Reading Book Bands and Decodable Reading Books

PM Benchmarking is carried out at the beginning of each term (at a minimum) to ensure that children’s books are accurately matched to their reading ability. All children read with an adult at school to ensure their progress through the book bands is carefully monitored and that they are accessing suitable texts. Those children identified as needing further phonics intervention will be given decodable reading books, matched closely with their current phonic knowledge.