At Cockington Primary School, we’re passionate about bringing learning to life. We combine our diverse curriculum, dynamic teaching and core values to give our pupils a rich and engaging education.

Art

Computing

English

French

Geography

History

Maths

Music

Ocean Curriculum

PSHE

Science

At Cockington, we believe that getting the curriculum right is the key to the future success of our pupils.

We are very proud of our curriculum at Cockington. We make children’s learning enticing, purposeful and challenging. Teachers set high expectations of attainment and demonstrate these through adult-led modelling. We aim for each child to reach for the highest level of personal achievement.

The curriculum incorporates the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum 2014 and other stimulating experiences and opportunities which best meet the learning and developmental needs of the pupils in our school.

For those pupils who are still working on the Early Learning Goals as they enter Year 1, there is a period in the Autumn Term when the majority of children progress to the National Curriculum. Throughout this time and beyond, all children continue to develop their phonic knowledge through the RWinc Programme.

The National Curriculum is delivered though six termly themes in each year group and learning in foundation subjects is driven by engaging enquiry questions. This approach enables project-based learning, fostering each child’s curiosity and interest throughout each topic and also enabling the achievement of depth in knowledge and skills. The children’s own community, its unique location and traditions are frequently used as starting points for engaging interest. The curriculum themes also ensure a wide range of cultures and communities are explored. Our broad curriculum is mainly delivered through ‘Learning Enquiries’. These are stimulating, short units of work that teach children progressive knowledge and skills and develop themselves as learners. They give rise to a sequence of lessons which provide pupils with a rich experience to develop the knowledge, skills and strength of character that we believe are essential to send them successfully on their way to secondary school and beyond.

Learning Enquiries are all similarly structured. They begin with a stimulating ‘hook’. The purpose of the hook is twofold: to inspire the children and to present the children with a time-limited challenge of an ‘outcome’ for which to prepare, where the enquiry question is answered. A sequence of well-judged, rigorous activities to develop knowledge and skills follows the hook. A single, high quality ‘showcase’ concludes the experience. The showcase often involves a parent or community sharing event. In this way, the children's learning is always given a context. This purpose and opportunity to share achievements ensures our children are immensely proud of their successes and themselves as learners.

The content of the Learning Enquiries is based on up to three ‘driver’ subjects for each LE, with one driver always being writing. By carefully mapping coverage within and between year groups, teachers ensure that children are taught progressive content in each of the National Curriculum subjects. Each half term Learning Enquiry is based on our school’s ‘Big Ideas’, which are: Sustainability, Global Citizens, Connecting to our locality, Talents and Interests, Active Citizenship and STEAM. We start from our subject ladder, our subject progression documents, which outlines our school’s curriculum objectives, stating the learning that we want the children to know, understand and be able to do by the end of each year. These objectives are based on the National Curriculum, but over time we are developing them to specify the knowledge in more detail and to focus more on our locality and the world.

For each Learning Enquiry, teachers focus on one of our school values as well as ensuring children are exposed to a programme of ‘entitlements’ during their time at Cockington. Entitlements include those activities that we believe all children should have a chance to experience, alongside exposure to the very best of human achievement. Children are provided with first-hand inspirational experiences wherever possible - local trips and visitors are integral to our curriculum. The children need purpose for their learning and so Learning Enquiries, wherever possible, involve our community and develop the children as active citizens.

The more able pupils are challenged further in their learning and those who find aspects of their learning more difficult are appropriately supported so that they too are enabled to experience success and progress. Our SEND Policy can be viewed by clicking on this link. The spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of our pupils, as well as their understanding of the core values of living in a modern British society, are woven throughout the curriculum.

All subject leaders are given ongoing training and opportunities to keep developing their own subject knowledge, skills and understanding so they can best support curriculum development and their colleagues throughout the school. After school clubs and events extend these opportunities further.

The outdoor environment and the local community are considered as key opportunities for active learning for all our pupils. The school grounds have been developed so they can enrich all curriculum areas.

English and Mathematics are taught using thoughtfully selected learning partners. In all year groups, there are small (flexible) interventions in order to support pupils in gaining the key skills to become successful readers, writers and mathematicians. Pre- and post-teaching is used to successfully support and facilitate pupil progress. Oracy skills are taught and embedded in all year groups and children develop into confident communicators with well- developed language and oracy skills as they progress through the school.

Our Vision ‘Believe, Achieve, Succeed’ is the golden thread that runs through our whole curriculum.

Believe: Our pupils leave Cockington believing in themselves as individuals and as learners.

Our curriculum builds the children’s self-belief through providing purpose and a sense of achievement. We celebrate the children’s achievements through outcomes, communication with their families, certificates, rewards, displays and assemblies. Our school values of perseverance, aspirational, collaboration, independence, respect and creativity are celebrated and taught across the curriculum.

Children with particular needs are supported by a variety of professionals including the SEND team, pastoral team and Speech and Language support. Their provision is mapped and regularly reviewed. We provide the means for the children to develop a good relationship with themselves, others and their learning.

We recognise, support and foster children’s talents and interests through wider opportunities such as after school clubs, festivals. We also take opportunities to develop interests and talents through a carefully planned curriculum.

Achieve: Our pupils leave Cockington with the knowledge and skills needed for the next stage of their lives.

Our curriculum sets out the knowledge and skills for the children to learn in each year group. The knowledge and complexity builds sequentially across the years.

Our curriculum is cohesive, it’s built to ‘stick’. We provide opportunities to review and build on prior knowledge.

Our curriculum ensures all children are able to succeed and build their knowledge and skills a step at a time. This is achieved through sequencing learning in each lesson and across a unit of work in small, connected steps. Our planning uses Rosenshine’s principles moving from modelled to guided to scaffolded and independent practice. The content of units of work are connected to those which have come before and we plan in opportunities to recall prior learning. Units of work are built on the knowledge and skills learnt in previous units.

We carefully plan the content of learning to ensure children progressing at different paces are ‘kept in the lift’. Teachers use questioning, whole class feedback sheets and feedback with the children to inform the next steps and support or challenge needed.

We support families in helping their children to develop their reading ability by providing workshops and advice. We invite parents in to school to read with their children and emphasise the importance of reading at home.

Succeed: Our pupils leave Cockington with the strength of character and knowledge that will help them to succeed as citizens within and beyond our locality.

Our curriculum and school culture prioritises reading. We believe that reading fluency is essential to future success and that, in partnership with families, we have a vital job in developing a love of reading.

Reading is a strong thread across our curriculum and timetables and we wholeheartedly believe in giving time to reading. We want all staff in the school to feel able to give reading the time it needs. Across the year, we promote reading through assemblies, book fairs, the newsletter and of course world book day.

Our library is a central space for children to discover and borrow books. Classes and groups can use the space for sharing stories. Year six has a separate library to encourage greater independence and ownership. There are additional reading areas within classes and year groups. At lunchtime, we have a reading zone which contains a selection of books for children to enjoy.

Adults read a quality ‘Read Aloud’ book daily to the children. This is chosen from Pie Corbett’s reading spine or in discussion with the English lead.

All staff have CPD in teaching fluency and it holds a prominent role in our reading curriculum from Reception to Year 6. Fluency assessments using the multi-dimensional rubric are used to identify and plan for children whose fluency is below ARE.

We develop the whole child by providing opportunities to be global citizens and citizens of our local community.

RElated resources

Curriculum Information

Curriculum Long Term Plan

Curriculum Overview

Curriculum Vision

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What people are saying about Cockington Primary School

"I love this school. We have lots of fun things to do, and I love visiting the beach!"

Callum | child

"We are really lucky here to have all the fun games and things to play with at lunchtime."

Oakley | Year 2 Pupil

Cockington Primary School is a wonderful place to come to everyday. I love working with the children.

Teacher |

"Cockington Primary School is a welcoming school. Staff will do anything for the children, who are at the heart of everything we do."

Teacher | Teacher

"Thank you very much for your involvement and for your support regarding children who have come from other countries. With your help, the whole of the Cockington teaching staff and the friendly children in the school, my child has integrated nicely into the education system in Great Britain."

Y5 Parent |

"My children are happy at this school, the staff are nice and helpful when needed."

Parent Survey Response | Parent

What an amazing show! Well done Year 5.

Gen & Olly | Parent

"Both my boys are very happy to come to school every morning; they adore the nurturing, genuinely warm, caring staff and enjoy all the extra experiences that Cockington provides: trips, clubs, curriculum outcomes to name a few!"

Parent Survey Response | Parent

"Cockington Primary School has looked after my children well throughout their time."

Karson Camron | Parent

"My first impression of the school was of the brilliant reception staff who, though clearly very busy, were as welcoming as they were efficient."

Mr Murray | School visitor

The children who attended the Torquay United match are a credit to your school the way they behaved. They didn't stop singing despite the bad weather!

Jo Harris | Community Officer at Torquay United

Pupils at Cockington Primary School are happy, safe and well supported. They benefit from the care of dedicated staff who are ambitious for every child.

Ofsted report 2025 | Inspector

Thank you for Cockington Primary School for being an excellent audience to my poetry assemblies. They produced some great poems at Torquay library and the staff were brilliant to work with.

James | Poet

The school’s provision for personal development is a strength. Pupils learn about fundamental British values and experience democracy through voting for school council representatives.

Ofsted report 2025 | Inspector