Curriculum Intent:

We aim to provide a curriculum that:

• Allows all students to Join in and experience a rich curriculum offering both breadth and depth.
• Motivates all students giving them the skills, knowledge and confidence to be a fully participating member of society.
• Is ambitious for all students, equipping them the skills and knowledge to access the highest level of jobs in the local labour market.

Local context:

There is the need for an ambitious, strong, academic core curriculum.

Local labour market information in Berkshire tells us that 36% of jobs require a degree. A further 56% of jobs require mid- range qualification, however only a third of residents have their highest level of qualification at this level.

EBaccalaureate:

We see the EBacc as being at the core of our curriculum. All students study a modern foreign language in KS3; students are then guided onto appropriate pathways at KS4, with well over half of our students studying the EBacc.

We are ambitious for our students and see it as an issue of moral and social justice that our students do not settle for jobs less than they are capable of. In other words, if they are capable, our students should aim for the 36% of jobs which require a degree in the locality of greater. Putting the EBacc at the core of the curriculum allows our students to aim high, with plenty of opportunities available for them in industry in both Reading and Slough (Europe’s largest industrial estate).

Through our curriculum in all subject areas, we aim to develop not only the core academic knowledge and transferrable skills to prepare students for the world of work, but we also aim to build the all-round person.

Implementation:

The enacted curriculum.

All of our lessons are rooted in the evidence of how pupils best learn. Our Heads of Department have worked closely with their teams to focus on the mastery needed in each subject area. This has allowed them to build curriculums that make it clear what end points are building towards, what pupils need to know and be able to do to reach those end points and plan and sequence the curriculum to that end. The units studied in each subject are sequenced to build knowledge and to allow for regular retrieval practise.

SUBJECT	KS3 SEPT 2022	KS4 SEPT 2022
English	X	X
Maths	X	X
Science	X	X
MFL	X	Option
Geography	X	Option
History	X	Option
PE	X	X
Food Technology	X	Option
Art	X	Option
Drama	X	Option
Travel and Tourism	n/a	Option
Health and Social Care	n/a	Option
Business Studies	n/a	Option
RE	X	X
PSHE	X	X
Music	X	Option
Technology	X	Option
Computing	X	Option