Our school curriculum is focussed on realising our mission statement:

‘Build the very best working relationships based on our Christian values in order to deliver learning experiences that last a lifetime.’

We believe that access to knowledge is transformative and that it is our duty to ensure all students have equal opportunity to acquire it. Subject specialists are integral to the development of a high-quality curriculum, which is informed by the latest research and continuously refined through dedicated professional development time.

Our curriculum is broad, inclusive, and exceeds the requirements of the national curriculum. It aspires to inspire, exposing students to seminal works in science, literature, and the arts. Content is deliberately structured and sequenced to promote sustained knowledge acquisition and its application across disciplines.

We employ targeted strategies to cultivate high levels of literacy, numeracy, and oracy. While responsive to the context of our students’ lives, our curriculum is designed to foster aspiration and broaden their horizons.

Curriculum Principles

We are committed to continuous process of developing our curriculum to reflect the cultural climate and the needs of our students. In each subject the curriculum is designed, developed and reviewed according to the following principles:-

1. Challenge The appropriate amount of challenge leads to better progress, a sense of achievement and reduces disengagement.  This helps develop a Growth Mindset which accepts challenges and setbacks are a natural step in the learning process.  We ‘Teach to the Top’ and scaffold down where necessary, exposing students to the healthy struggle required to learn new knowledge and skills.

2. Engagement If students are engaged in the material, they are more likely to learn.  Engaging with the new material, and seeing how it connects with prior learning allows new knowledge to be grasped more quickly (Nuthall refers to it as mental Velcro – the more you know, the more opportunities there are for new stuff to stick!).  Engagement also is valuable when helping students remain on task and prevent distractions hindering their learning.  In addition, following a mastery model or as Rosenshine describes it as ‘a high success rate’, students know the work won’t be moving on too quickly.  

3. Feedback. Provide feedback in a timely manner and making sure it triggers thinking from the students is shown by the EEF to be particularly effective in helping students make progress.  Moving towards instant feedback in lessons whilst students are working minimalizes the chances of misconceptions being practiced and allows students to practice the correct techniques, learn them and then apply them. 

4. Independence  Providing opportunities for students to develop self-regulation and metacognition is shown by the EEF to allow students to make more progress.  Using Action Feedback to trigger thinking, designing purposeful practice activities, Do Now Activities based on retrieval, progress trackers in books, and assessments that assess accumulated knowledge and skills all allow for independence to be developed.

We are an academic and democratic school who aims to open doors. We understand the positive impact and contribution creative, practical and vocational learning brings to a child’s development as well as the need for academia.

Our hope is that every student who leaves our school has the qualifications, skills, knowledge and character to access aspirational Post-16 opportunities and to lead a life that is embellished with mutual respect, individual liberty and tolerance.

We not only recognise the importance of providing an academically enriching curriculum, but we also embrace our wider role in preparing students for life in modern Britain. A life where they feel happy, safe and secure. 

As such, across all subject areas, staff make a concerted effort to draw pertinent links between wider areas of the curriculum including:

• British Values where we broaden students' perspectives and promote their sense of moral and social responsibility through a range of spiritual, moral, social and cultural opportunities; 

• Literacy and Numeracy where we afford opportunities for all students to develop a high level of literacy and numeracy required for success in the wider curriculum and in adult life;

• Enrichment where we provide an appropriate range of opportunities and experiences to inspire students to succeed in the next stage of their academic career;

• Christian Distinctiveness where we partner with home, church and the local community to help students make a positive contribution to God’s world.

Research linked to our philosophies.