Curriculum Statement

School Aims

As a school community, we have set the following aims:

We strive to be a school in which 

• learning, in its broadest sense, is central to all that we do
• we are committed to on-going self-evaluation and continuous improvement
• we see ourselves as an integral part of our local community

 And in which every individual

• is challenged to achieve to his or her full potential
• sets the highest of personal standards in work and conduct
• enjoys a genuine sense of success, both individually and collectively
• is encouraged to develop a wide range of talents and interests
• is prepared for life, education and employment beyond school
• develops a deep moral, spiritual and cultural understanding
• is valued, cared for and supported
• feels safe and secure, and is healthy and happy
• accepts his or her responsibility to the other members of the school and wider community

School Curriculum Intent

As a school we aim to

• Ensure all students have access to a fair and ambitious curriculum.  
• Ensure that all students are exposed to the cultural capital required to succeed once they leave school.  
• Teach a broad curriculum so that students are given the opportunity to engage in a wide variety of subjects and specialisms and so that students are given the opportunity to achieve in both EBacc and other subjects.
• Sequence the curriculum so that knowledge and skills are built on in a logical manner to ensure long term retention and deep knowledge and understanding
• Ensure that students are accurately assessed and that students are supported to achieve age related standards, as a minimum and progress in line with or above national norms
• Support staff in managing their workload, through high quality detailed schemes of learning and ongoing professional development

Curriculum Implementation

We support students to ensure all have access to a fair and ambitious curriculum

• We understand the demographic of our intake and undertake a number of initiatives which are specific to the needs of students such as
  • Encouraging all pupils to read through our accelerated reader programme
  • Running a student leadership programme
• We have a wide variety of feeder schools. We recognise the variation across the schools and support students in their transition by
• Running a year 5 Science day
• Running a year 6 induction day
• Using year 8 Transition leaders to support year 7 students
• Offering an additional form tutor evening to year 7 students
• Running year 7 form team building activities
• We support students who are below National expectations in reading, writing and mathematics by
  • Running a small curriculum studies group instead of languages offering
    • The Literacy Fresh Start Scheme at KS3 (See KS3 Start up document on the website)
    • The Catapult Literacy intervention at KS4
    • Achieve 300 Reading support
  • Training sixth form students who act as reading and maths mentors with KS3 students
• Some students lack academic confidence and have low aspirations. We work to raise these by
  • Offering a high value careers programme, we have the gold careers mark
  • Training peer mentors to support younger pupils
  • Achievement coaches working with selected students
• We ensure SEND students are supported in lessons by providing
  • Additional support in transition from their previous school
  • Supervised provision before and after school as well as break and lunchtimes
  • Computer access and homework support
  • Chromebook provision in lessons if required
  • TA support if appropriate
• We provide opportunities for Challenge and Aspiration (AG+T) students through
  • Many STEM activities and workshops throughout their school career including attending the Big Bang Exhibition.
  • Visits to external educational establishments including the University of Cambridge
• Ensuring a wide variety of extra-curricular opportunities including (for more information on this see the extra-curricular opportunities document)
  • Musical instrument tuition and clubs
  • School drama performances, drama clubs, performances and theatre visits
  • Sports teams and clubs
  • Science activities
  • Duke of Edinburgh award

 We want to ensure that all students are exposed to the critical experiences or cultural capital required to succeed after they leave school:

• The school identified 5 core values through a process including students, parents and teachers which are promoted in lessons, in assemblies and through the PSHE, ‘Time to Talk’ and ethics programmes
• In order to help drive our values, the theme for 2019-20 is ‘Living with kindness and respect
• We teach a broad KS3 curriculum where all students are taught Art, Drama and Music twice a fortnight and Design 4 times a fortnight.
• Almost all students study a language in years 7 and 8 and then about two thirds go onto study a language at GCSE.
• Subjects have identified the key experiences and cultural capital which they deliver to all students.
• We teach fortnightly PSHE lessons through which we teach significant SMSC content
  • RSE/ Relationships and Sex Education is taught in a sensible and supportive manner
  • Lifeskills day teaches students employability skills
• We are a restorative school that encourages students to discuss their feelings and views and show compassion to others. To promote this we additionally
  • Run a ‘Time to talk’ time once a fortnight for 45 minutes with year 7 and 8 students where students explore ethical issues and the school values.
  • Run ethics for year 9 to 11 students, which delivers the statutory parts of Religious Education, but also encourages students to consider relevant issues in society.
  • We run restorative conversations as part of conflict resolutions, which can include students, parents, staff or the public.
• We run a leadership programme which encourages pupils to take responsibility for their own personal development and contribution to their community. There are a wide variety of roles, including
  • Student year leaders
  • Peer mentors
  • Involvement in year and school council
  • Anti-bullying group
  • Sports Leaders
  • Prefects
  • Headteacher Ambassadors
  • House Leaders
  • Senior Prefects
• We ensure that British Values are integrated into the curriculum
• We offer a varied extra-curricular programme– see above
• We offer a variety of trips including in 2018-19
  • A Languages trip to Barcelona
  • A PE department watersports trip to France
  • A ski trip (bi-annual so took place in 2017-18)
  • Geography field trips
  • A sixth form trip to CERN
  • We ensure that students are work-ready by
    • Running an extensive careers programme – we have the gold careers mark
    • Running work experience for year 10 pupils
    • Promoting work related skills in lessons

We are committed to delivering a broad curriculum to all students

We have a 2 year KS3 and 3 year KS4. The main reasons for offering this is to….

• Increase motivation amongst year 9 students
• Ensure that students are given time at GCSE to revisit topics to ensure long-term retention and to delve deeper into their understanding.
• Facilitate greater curriculum time for those studying creative arts subjects including design

We have a commitment to the E-Bacc.

• All students study either Geography or History
• All but a small group of students study Spanish for 6 hours/ fortnight in year 7 and 4 hours/ fortnight in year 8
• The top two groups on each half year (approx. 60%) study French as an addition for another 4 hours in year 8.
• All students have the option of pursuing a language at GCSE and we have a high uptake of languages at GCSE (57% in 2018)

We continue to offer a broad range of subjects.

• At KS3 students study 2 lessons per fortnight per subject in drama, art, ICT and music
• At KS3 students study 4 lessons per fortnight to design including 2 in design and technology (including resistant materials, graphics and electronics) and 2 in food/ textiles
• At KS3 students study 2 lessons a fortnight of Religious Studies (RS) and at KS4 RS is offered as an option.
• All students at KS4 study RS through an ethics lesson which takes place once a fortnight for 45 minutes.
• We offer Level 2 BTECs in ICT, Physical Education and Health and Social Care
• All students (11-16) study 4 lessons a fortnight of non-examination PE
• We have recently expanded the GCSE options to include GCSE Computer Studies and GCSE PE.
• At KS5, we have 2 major FE colleges very close to the school. We believe that they offer vocational alternatives to pupils, but as a result we ensure that we continue to offer academic alternatives, continuing to offer Music, Drama, Design and Languages despite lower numbers.
• We run L3 BTEC courses as A level equivalents in ICT, Sport Studies and Health and Social Care to help support a balanced curriculum
• We run the Extended Project Qualification in year 12 to help prepare students for higher education study and to deepen learning in their chosen field.

We sequence the curriculum so that knowledge and skills are built on in a logical manner and that teaching is consistently good or outstanding.

• A key focus of the school has been the development of rigorous schemes of learning to ensure a consistency of delivery.
• We have ensured that topics are spiralled to ensure that they are revisited and further built on to ensure life-long learning.
• Teachers are encouraged to continue their own personal learning and development, including curriculum knowledge.
• Less experienced teachers are supported to build up their curriculum knowledge over time; for example through a staged build-up of GCSE and A level delivery.
• The school takes an active part in the SWAN consortium of local schools sharing good practice. This includes senior and middle leader groups
• The school belongs to the PIXL group – a National consortium devoted to improving curriculum and delivery quality and enable core independent skills in students

How we ensure that students are accurately assessed and that students are supported to achieve age related standards.

• Students are regularly assessed in department
• Formal assessment information is put onto Go4Schools – an online data package, so that parents and students can access them at any stage.  
• Students performing below reasonable expectations are given booster material and opportunities designed to get them back on track
• Additionally, teachers report to parents 3 times a year through progress reports

The Subjects offered at Moulton School 2019-20

All students in KS3 and 4 are divided into

• half years; X and Y
• 8 different form groups which also count as their house

KS3 - Years (7 and 8)

Students at Moulton School follow a wide a range of subjects, which provides a sound academic foundation for future success.

The subjects taught at KS3 (years 7 and 8) are (including lessons per fortnight);

• The core subjects; English (8 in yr7 and 6 in yr8), Maths (6) and Science (6)
• Humanities; Geography (3), History (3) and RE (2)
• A language;
  • In year 7, students study Spanish (6).  A small group of students take part in a literacy skills group instead of a language if this is more appropriate (8).
  • In year 8, four groups study both French and Spanish (8), four groups study Spanish (4) and Media Studies (4) (run by English and aimed at improving writing skills) and two groups take part in a curriculum support group in addition to attending media studies lessons and instead of any language.
  • Design; Students have 2 lessons of food/ textiles (on a rotation) and 2 lessons of Resistant materials (Graphics, Plastics, CAD, Metals, Wood)
  • Physical Education (4)
  • The Arts; Music (2), Drama (2) and Art (2)
  • Personal Development; this is taught through a 45 minute PSHE lesson on Tuesday mornings. Once a fortnight this is held as a form circle

KS4 - Years (9, 10 and 11)

We run a 3 year KS4 for the reasons stated in the main document above. The subjects taught at KS4 (Years 9, 10 and 11) are (including lessons per fortnight);

• The core subjects; English (8 in yrs9 and 10, 9 in yr11), Maths (8) and Science (10 in yrs 9 and 10, 9 in yr11)
• Physical Education (4)

Option subjects chosen by the students (4 subjects of 5 lessons);

• Humanities; Students choose either History or Geography (5)
• Language (Spanish or French).
• Design (Food Preparation and Nutrition or Design and Technology – specialising in either Product Design or Textiles)
• Art, Business, Drama, Music, Religious Studies or Computer Science
• Sports Studies, ICT or Health and Social Care (all Level 2 BTEC)
• Curriculum Support (by invitation only – counts as 1 option)

Personal Development; this is taught through a 45 minute PSHE lesson once a fortnight on Tuesday mornings. On the alternative weeks students study Ethics which covers the compulsory components of Religious Education as advised by the DFE as well as encouraging student to consider the impact of their choices on others and the environment.

KS5 - Years (12 and 13)

We are proud of the high levels of achievement our students achieve and that the majority of students progress into Higher Education.

The subjects taught at KS5 (Years 12 and 13) are

(all subjects are 9 lessons plus 1 supervised study period per fortnight unless small group sizes: presently French, Spanish and Drama)

• English Language
• English Literature
• Mathematics
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Physics
• French
• Spanish
• History
• Geography
• Business Studies
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Economics
• Art
• Drama
• Music
• Product Design
• Health and Social Care (level 3 Extended Certificate BTEC)
• IT (level 3 Extended Certificate BTEC)
• Sport Science (level 3 Extended Certificate BTEC)
• Extended Project Qualification