Curriculum Rationale

Our curriculum is intended to create good people and as such we have a strong ambitious curriculum enabling the vast majority of students to follow the EBacc. We believe in equally promoting academic excellence with holistic development to support the whole child and our broad and balanced curriculum seeks to ensure that all students thrive academically, socially, morally and culturally and are fully prepared for life beyond school.

We have maintained a three-year Key Stage 3 from Year 7 through to Year 9 so that important subjects such as History and Geography are studied by all learners until the end of Year 9. In summary, Core subjects – English, mathematics and science, foundation subjects include – French/Spanish, humanities (history/geography), religious studies, art, performing arts including music, dance and drama, computing and design and technology. At Key Stage 4, students continue with the core offer which is based largely on EBacc, with some flexibility for students based on need.

Our students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and to celebrate this we build in opportunities into both our academic and personal development curriculum. We also ensure we develop students’ literacy and numeracy in order to best prepare them for working life.

We build their character through a well-planned personal development curriculum and take every opportunity to develop their cultural, social, moral understanding to ensure students are fully prepared for life in modern Britain and are able to make a positive contribution to society.

Our curriculum aims to take students beyond qualifications for example we build their character through a well-planned personal development curriculum and take every opportunity to develop their cultural, social, moral understanding to ensure students are fully prepared for their next phase of learning.   The personal development curriculum also covers careers, relationships and citizenship issues and ensures we are preparing our students for life in modern Britain.  

Implementation

The five year curriculum at the College is carefully designed and implemented in such a way that it enables pupils to build their knowledge, understanding and skills in a systematic and progressive way. Cognitive science principles are used as teachers plan learning that allows students to embed and recall knowledge through techniques such as interleaving of topics and spaced practice. There are high levels of challenge built into lessons, together with targeted support, in order to ensure all learners can make excellent progress from their starting points. Teachers provide a wide range of varied activities that enable students to work independently and collaboratively.

We develop the ‘whole child’ through a carefully constructed pastoral curriculum which sits alongside the academic curriculum.  Our personal development curriculum helps our students become well rounded global citizens and our extensive enrichment programme encourages students to take part in a wide range of sporting, cultural, charitable and leadership opportunities.


IMPACT

The aim of our curriculum is to create students who are:

  • Successful, strong, independent and adaptable learners who enjoy learning, make excellent progress and fulfil their holistic potential
  • Knowledgeable and have developed expertise across a wide range of academically challenging subjects
  • Independent readers who can comprehend and decode challenging texts
  • Able to express their ideas and opinions in an articulate manner, either through writing or speaking
  • Confident individuals who are able to live safe and healthy lives and embrace challenges
  • Responsible citizens equipped with cultural capital who can make a positive contribution to society
  • Given the opportunity to develop character strengths embodied in our values of resilience, respect, reflectiveness and resourcefulness.