Curriculum Structure

Our students experience a broad, balanced and challenging curriculum so that they build up a rich body of knowledge over time.   The curriculum structure is outlined below:

• Students are set by ability in English and mathematics at the start of Year 7. Students will be set in science at the start of year 9 as they prepare to progress on to GCSE content.
• All lessons are 50 minutes in length with a one week timetable in operation and average class size is 30 students apart from Design Technology and Music lessons where the average class size is 20.
• For Design Technology, students spend 13 weeks in each of the three subjects; Food, Textiles and Resistant Materials in a ‘creative rotation’ throughout Key Stage 3.
• Expressive Arts consists of four subjects; Art, Dance, Drama and Music. At key stage 3 students will have Art and Music every week. The year will be split in two for Dance and Drama.

Over a 30 week period, lessons in Key Stage 3 are distributed as follows:

Subject	Periods per week
English	5
Mathematics	5
Science	5
Geography	2
History	2
Religious Studies	1
French/Spanish	3
Physical Education (PE)	2
Design & Technology	1
Expressive Arts	3
Computing	1
*Personal Development Curriculum (PDC)	1

*PDC is taught a floating period and is taught at different times each week.

In Year 9 students are set by ability in all of their core subjects. Students will make three option choices towards the end of year 9 to start GCSE courses in year 10, one of these choices will be History or Geography. The vast majority of students (over 90%) will take either French or Spanish as a GCSE option. There is a different pathway available for some students where an EBacc route may not be appropriate e.g. these students will not take an MFL subject for their GCSEs.

In Year 10 and 11 students will continue their core curriculum of English, mathematics and science, PE, PDC and either French or Spanish. They will also opt for either history or geography. Students in these year groups have also chosen an ‘early entry’ option they started studying in Year 9 which they will take examinations for at the end of year 10 (this is being phased out). Students in Year 11 who have completed their ‘early entry’ course are now receiving extra intervention lessons in English, mathematics,  and History/Geography.

Subject	Periods per week
English	5
Mathematics	5
Science	6
French/Spanish	3
History/Geography	3
Personal Development Curriculum	1
Physical Education	2
Y9 option/intervention lessons	3
Y10 option	3