Our curriculum is based on the Northern Ireland Curriculum.  This is set across three key stages - the Foundation Stage (P1 & P2), Key Stage 1 (P3 & P4) and Key Stage 2 (P5, P6 & P7). Each year we host an information session to outline your child’s learning for that year.

Our curriculum is designed to recognise and build upon children’s prior learning. It provides engaging, interactive and creative opportunities, allowing children to develop resilience and confidence and become creative, critical thinkers. This is broken down into the following key learning areas:

1. Language and Literacy

Literacy Team: Mrs Hughes (Subject Co-Ordinator), Mrs Blackadder, Mrs Herron

At Harmony Primary School, we aim to help our children develop a love and a curiosity for Language and Literacy across all classes. Literacy is an integral part of all learning in the Northern Ireland Curriculum and the development of Language and Literacy is crucial to living and learning.

We aim to create an excellent classroom atmosphere where children feel relaxed, accepted and confident in all Literacy activities. Pupils are encouraged to have fun whilst acquiring new Literacy skills and at the same time developing their own ideas, knowledge and confidence.

Pupils are encouraged from the outset to develop their Talking and Listening skills with opportunities to foster and develop their oral skills through relevant and meaningful activities throughout the school.

Reading is highly valued and central to the ethos of our school. Each child is encouraged to read both in school and at home. Our school library, class libraries, special focus days and book fairs all aim to foster a love of books and reading which will stay with children long after they leave Primary School. Pupil progress is tracked and any children who require additional help with their learning are identified at an early stage and supported by our highly skilled Learning Support teachers.

Writing is constantly developed throughout our pupils’ time at Harmony Primary. The technical aspects of writing are taught using a structured approach that analyses, shares and models areas of writing excellence. Creative skills are developed by providing experiences across all areas of the curriculum both in and outside the classroom in order to stimulate children's written expression.

Helping at home

You may wish to read further information on the Planning and Assessment of Language and Literacy in Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 by clicking on the link below: 

http://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/docs/key_stages_1_and_2/northern_ireland_curriculum_primary.pdf

2. Mathematics and Numeracy

Our focus in mathematics teaching at Harmony Primary is to encourage our children to be confident and enthusiastic mathematicians, making sense of the world around them through the development of their ability to reason, calculate and solve problems, building on skills learned in previous years.

Mathematics and Numeracy is an Area of Learning in the Northern Ireland Curriculum. It gives children a wider understanding of how the world around them works and prepares them for making decisions, solving problems and processing everyday information.

Children will develop knowledge, understanding and skills in:

• Processes in Mathematics
• Number
• Measures
• Shape and Space
• Handling Data.

Using Mathematics

Numeracy Team: Miss Marshall (Subject Co-Ordinator)

Mathematics is a Cross-Curricular Skill at the heart of the curriculum. It is the skill of applying mathematical concepts, processes and understanding appropriately in different contexts and in real life situations.  Children will have opportunities to demonstrate their mathematical knowledge, understanding and skills in a variety of ways, including communicating, managing information, thinking critically, solving problems, and making decisions.

At Harmony Primary we ensure that our curriculum is accessible to all children.  We will maximise the development of every child’s ability and academic achievement and preparation for their journey into the wider world. We aim to deliver lessons that are creative, engaging and purposeful. We intend for all our pupils to be able to apply their mathematical knowledge across the curriculum.

Daily mathematics lessons have a strong emphasis on arithmetic, mental maths skills and problem solving. During these lessons children may work as a whole class, in groups or individually as appropriate. A wide range of concrete resources are used. Maths is often of a practical nature, with more formal written methods being taught at the end of Key Stage 1.

Helping at home

These resources are designed to help you support your child's maths learning at home. They will build their understanding of the maths concepts covered in the classroom.

https://ccea.org.uk/learning-resources/help-your-child-maths

3. The Arts

4. Personal Development & Mutual Understanding

PDMU Team: Mrs Herron (Subject Co-Ordinator) / Mrs Campbell 

At Harmony, our Personal Development and Mutual Understanding (PDMU) curriculum content is taught from P1-7. We encourage children's emotional and social development, confidence, independence and health and safety. While also developing their moral thinking, values and actions. 

We feel that it is important to build up our pupils' self-esteem and self-confidence. In each class we promote our pupils to express their feelings and emotions, while thinking about how our actions can affect others. Through PDMU we encourage positive attitudes towards learning and personal achievement. 

At Harmony, we pride ourselves on being a community school. Through our PDMU curriculum we teach the children to respect and have a mutual understanding of the local and wider community. Our PDMU content allows the children to learn about responsibility, respect, honesty and fairness. While equipping them to have constructive approaches to conflict and understand the similarities and differences between people.  We hope that through their PDMU education they can develop themselves as model citizens in the local community. 

5. Physical Development & Movement

6. Religious Education

R.E Team: Mrs Webb (Subject Co-Ordinator)

The Northern Ireland Core Syllabus for RE at primary level focusses particularly on the beliefs, practices and teachings of the Christian faith. It focusses on encouraging each child to become informed and inquisitive about their own religious beliefs and practices and those of others.

An awareness and understanding of religion should help children to:

 • make sense of the world around them

• think about universal human questions

 • begin to shape their own attitudes and values

 • be aware of and respect the different views of others

 • understand the important routines of life for many people, such as worship or prayer, or seasonal festivals

 • be aware of how people mark important stages of life, such as birth, growing up into adulthood and death

 • develop an understanding of how moral choices are made.

At Harmony, we provide this through

• Weekly assemblies
• Hymn practice
• RE lessons which promote discussion and debate, role play and drama, written work, videos, storytelling and art work.

7. The World Around Us

WAU Team: Mrs Grimason (Subject Co-Ordinator)

The World Around Us (WAU) consists of three contributory elements: Geography, History, and Science and Technology.

It is organised into four interrelated strands:

• Interdependence,
• Place
• Movement and Energy
• Change Over Time

In the area of the World Around Us, pupils at Harmony Primary School have opportunities to investigate the world in which they live through a range of themes and topics. Children are provided with the opportunity to find out information through asking and answering questions about why things happen in the way they do, research and record facts, and develop a natural curiosity and awe about the wonderful world around them. Through topics that have been developed in each year group, all children develop a sense of understanding and realisation about the way the world works, what has happened in the past and how things that we do can impact others further away. They will take part in class experiments and investigations and work collaboratively with others to expand their knowledge of each topic.

In Harmony Primary School, pupils have opportunities to enhance their learning in this area of the curriculum through educational visits such as museums, farms, National Trust parks, supermarkets etc. Children can also enjoy learning through a variety of organisations who bring areas of learning into the classroom through classroom visits and interactive workshops.

We are also very fortunate to have an outdoor classroom and enclosed forest area on our school grounds which we can use for many of our WAU lessons. Children are provided with opportunities to take their learning outdoors and develop their observation skills, classify, explore, predict, experiment, compare, plan, carry out and review their work.

8. Using ICT (UICT)

UICT Team: Mrs Herron (Subject Co-Ordinator)

At Harmony, we believe that ICT should be embedded throughout the curriculum, just like Communication and Using Mathematics. The three areas are statutory components that form part of the Northern Ireland Curriculum. 

As we are living in a world that is increasingly dominated by technology, we want our children to feel confident and prepared in using ICT as they move through life. We do this by providing our children with opportunities to transfer their knowledge, understanding and skills in a variety of meaningful contexts.

These include experiences to:

• Explore digital sources of information, investigate and solve problems.

• Express creative ideas using multimedia presentation.

• Exchange work and collaborate online.

• Evaluate and reflect on processes and outcomes for improvement.

• Exhibit, manage and showcase their learning

In Harmony, we are very fortunate to have a range of state-of-the-art technology throughout the whole school. This consists of: 

• Promethean Interactive Whiteboards fitted in each of the classrooms
• Surface Pro + Devices
• A large collection of iPads as well as;
• An up-to-date device trolley with new iPads
• Dell desktop PCs throughout school

All of our devices are equipped with appropriate programmes and apps to provide the best learning opportunities for our children. 

Safer Schools NI

As a school, we ensure that our pupils are provided with accurate and up-to-date e-safety learning. This is to make sure that our children know how to stay safe online and how to use technology safely. You can download our e-safety policy by clicking here. 

We encourage our parents to download the Safer Schools NI App. This app allows you to access contextual safeguarding information, advice and guidance, researched and written by online safeguarding experts.

Click here for iPhone download

Click here for Google Play dowload