The curriculum was described as ‘outstanding’ in 2009 by Ofsted during their inspection.All of our year groups follow the National Curriculum covering the subjects you’d expect such as Maths, English and Science.
The Key Stage 3 curriculum makes the most of the inspiring new building in the Junior Learning Village. The classroom spaces are used very effectively to enable students and staff to work in more flexible and varied ways than those typically found in a secondary school.
All students in year 7 have ‘Learn to Learn’ lessons designed to develop students’ understanding of how to become successful learners. This is a really important course for our students to develop the skills needed to be successful throughout their time with us and beyond. The skills they develop in this course are used and embedded in all of the other year 7 lessons.
In year 7 and 8 there are excellent opportunities for students to experience new areas of learning, such as cookery or Spanish; or to catch up on areas in which they are weaker; and for gifted and talented students to take on additional challenges. We call these SECURE lessons. We also use Challenge Wednesday to enable students to tackle a range of problems and issues such as environmental work, young firefighters course, sports leadership, photography, martial arts and enterprise activities to name just a few.
We want our students to become increasingly independent in their learning and become less reliant on a teacher telling them what to do. In years 8 and 9 TDU (transdisciplinary units) enable students to work at length and in depth on enquirybased activities. Big questions such as ‘Why are we here?’, ‘How great is Great Britain?’ and ‘When was it best to live?’ allow students to work independently to produce detailed answers following some time researching the question. Students are encouraged to take responsibility for when and where they will work on these projects. In year 9 students follow an Enterprise course. This encompasses business and enterprise skills and challenges as well as developing their ICT skills. Students are again encouraged to be more independent during the course working collaboratively with others to solve business problems using ICT.
In year 10 and 11 students follow a course called I-Citizen, which develops the research skills and study skills needed to complete a Project Qualification. This gives students another chance to show that they are becoming independent learners. At Key Stage 4 we offer a range of courses. The variety of pathways are well matched to students’ needs and interests and provide a very good range of vocational options. We also have an alternative curriculum for the small number of students who might otherwise disengage from learning. Our Personal, Social, Health and Economic education programme is delivered through our home groups, Well Being days and Experience Weeks. We have four Well Being days during the year when we suspend normal lessons and study a range of issues such as drugs, healthy lifestyles, crime and punishment and parenting.
In the sixth form there is a wide range of courses for students to choose from. Part of their subject time is spent in independent learning, working by themselves on activities set by their teachers. Some students also choose to take an Extended Project Qualification equivalent to an AS level course. The study skills they develop before sixth form are essential for them to succeed in their studies. Students are able to choose optional subjects for year 10 during the spring term of year 9. Provisional choices for 6th form subjects are also made during the spring term, final choices are confirmed after the results day in August.
Websites that might help include:-
http://www.connexions-direct.com/whichwaynow/
