St Andrew the Apostle

Curriculum Vision

Underpinned by its Christian values, the school believes in the importance of developing a curriculum that is enjoyable, encourages responsibility, builds self-esteem, demands high standards, enables achievement and provides strong foundations for future learning. We summarise this as a curriculum which develops wise students; our definition of wisdom encompasses knowledge acquisition, skill development and personal moral development. The school is committed to the principles of equal value and equal opportunity, supporting all students to achieve their greatest potential not just academically, but also as creative, caring and responsible future adults.

The curriculum will have sufficient breadth, depth, balance and flexibility to meet the needs of all our students, developing them intellectually, socially, culturally, spiritually and morally.

The school will meet all the statutory requirements for the curriculum and pay proper regard to legislation along with our own policies for, equal opportunities, special educational needs, health and safety, and the safeguarding of our students.

In developing its curriculum, the school will be guided by the National Curriculum and use its content and structure as the basis of our provision.

Intent

Our curriculum aims to:

Provide all students with the opportunity not just to achieve but to excel.
Be broad and balanced, with a focus on the core subjects of English, mathematics and science, while ensuring that all students are encouraged to achieve in all National Curriculum subjects. A key part of our provision is an entitlement for all to develop their skills and interests in the arts and sport.
As well as the common curriculum there will be personalised curriculum pathways. All pathways will develop our students’ critical thinking skills and empower them as citizens, future employees and individuals.
At Key Stage 4, all students will be offered a pathway that leads to the English Baccalaureate but there will always be flexibility to adapt this for individuals with particular talents, gifts or progression routes.
For the minority of students where an English Baccalaureate or equivalent pathway is not appropriate, we will provide an alternative range of courses and options, enabling every student to gain a sense of self-worth and achievement through engaging courses and options.
Social, moral, spiritual and cultural development will be embedded throughout the curriculum.
Political matters

Partisan political views will not be promoted in the teaching of any subject in the school
Where political issues are bought to the attention of students, appropriate steps will be taken to offer a balanced presentation of opposing views.

Implementation

Each subject area has developed a programme of study to implement these curriculum aims. The guiding principles for this implementation are:
Clear progress across all seven years of the school alongside regular opportunities for revisiting and securing prior learning
Depth before breadth, maximising learning time in all subjects
Additional curriculum time in English and Mathematics to develop these key skills for life
Targeted support and additional challenge to ensure students make progress at least in line with our expectations
Engaging enrichment opportunities for all that are embedded in the classroom as well as beyond it.
Relevance to the wider world and application to the world of work
In planning the curriculum, links between subjects will be developed and to support the development of skills and the embedding of long-term recall of key knowledge