Curriculum

KS1 Phonics & Reading Schemes

At Abraham Moss, we aim for all our children to become fluent, confident readers, who are passionate about reading.

Children who read regularly or are read to regularly have the opportunity to open the doors to so many different worlds! More importantly, reading will give your child the tools to become independent life-long learners.

We can achieve this together through:

Read Write Inc., a program to help your child read at school
Encouraging children to develop a love of books by reading to them daily, at home and at school
Giving children access to a wide range of books at school and at home
Repeated readings of the same book to build up fluency and knowledge of vocabulary

The Government strongly recommends the use of synthetic phonics when teaching early literacy skills to children. Synthetic phonics is simply the ability to convert a letter or letter groups into sounds that are then blended together into a word.

Here at Abraham Moss Community School, we are using the Read Write Inc. (RWI) programme to get children off to a flying start with their English.

RWI is a complete phonics programme with high quality training, assessment, intervention and resources (including decodable books). We train all new members of staff in the RWI approach and provide ongoing training and support for existing teachers and support staff. We also carry out interventions to support pupils to ‘keep up’ with the programme.

The children are assessed regularly and grouped according to their ability. They will work with a RWI trained teacher or teaching Assistant.

Curriculum Intent

Abraham Moss Community School is proud to offer a traditional and inclusive curriculum. The curriculum has been carefully designed to match the abilities, interests and aspirations of pupils, to fulfil the ambitions of parents/carers for their children and to meet with the requirements of further education providers and employers. Curriculum content across subjects is primarily knowledge based and is increasingly designed to build on the findings from cognitive scientific research.

Abraham Moss curriculum is broad and balanced. The school operates a traditional three-year Key Stage 3 and two-year Key Stage 4. There is no early entry for the core GCSE qualifications. All pupils sit linear examinations at the end of Year 11.

Key Stage 4

All pupils are able to access the full national curriculum at KS4 for English (Literature & Language), Maths, Science (Combined) and History or Geography. Alongside all of these EBacc qualifications, we also offer a wide range of subjects to allow students to follow their own strengths, passions and ambitions:

Computer Studies/Digital IT
Spanish/French/Arabic (option to pursue home language where appropriate)
GCSE PE
Art & Design (Fine Art/Textiles/3D)
Drama
Music
Hospitality and Catering
Design Technology
Religious Studies IGCSE (for a limited number of pupils only)

The Key Stage 3

The Key Stage 3 curriculum offers variety, creativity and challenge. It fully prepares our pupils for Key Stage 4 and beyond. A common Year 7 curriculum has been developed across the Dean Trust secondary schools in 2018 which builds on the Assessment Objectives from Key Stage 2. The main emphasis of the curriculum lies with the core subjects of English, mathematics and science and there is also a very real focus on the humanities subjects and Modern Foreign Languages. Pupils also study a wide range of technology and expressive arts subjects during Key Stage 3 as well as Physical Education and Personal and Social Education.

All pupils are able to access the full national curriculum in KS3 for English, Maths, Science, History, Geography. At Abraham Moss Community school, all KS3 pupils also partake in…

Spanish
Religious Education
Computing
Music (practical and digital)
Drama
Food & Nutrition
Art & Design
Design Technology
PSHE

For those pupils that require additional literacy provision, this is also made available.

Homework

Homework is used to consolidate learning, prepare for the next lesson, or research topics to encourage independent learning and build scholarly habits. Teachers will set homework using Google Classroom and parents are encouraged to support by providing a quiet place for pupils to work and check Google Classroom for homework and deadlines. Core subjects such as English, Maths and Science will set homework once a week while other subjects will set them once a fortnight. Some creative subjects will set project based research tasks with key deadlines.

Higher Achieving Pupils

Higher achieving pupils are appropriately challenged to allow them to flourish and leave our school with the best qualifications possible. This is done by providing them with first-rate opportunities to develop the skills, confidence and attitudes needed to succeed at the best colleges and universities. The school enters higher achieving pupils to the supervised Mensa Tests to determine whether pupils demonstrate an IQ in the top two percent and can gain membership to Mensa. We also run an annual overnight trip to Oxford University in KS4. For further information, please contact our Higher Achievers coordinator, Ms Topping.

Special Educational Needs

Abraham Moss Community School is a very inclusive school and pupils with a wide range of special needs are very successfully included in our mainstream setting, with effective support appropriately targeted to them. No pupil is disadvantaged in the curriculum offering they have access to because of their additional needs. For more information on the support we offer our special educational needs pupils, please contact Mrs Stephen, Assistant Headteacher or Miss Tyldesley, SENDCo.

Curriculum contact

Mrs A Worswick, Deputy Headteacher

We hope that you can find any information that you require here, but if you cannot or require further information please contact the school on 0161 532 5400 or by emailing amcsadmin@abrahammoss.co.uk.

In accordance with statutory requirements, parents and carers have the right to withdraw their child from all or part of Religious Education (RE) lessons. If you wish to exercise this right, please contact the school to discuss your request and any alternative arrangements that may be necessary.