Key Stage 3 Curriculum

Intent

  • Committed to a three year programme leading to informed option choices at key stage 4
  • Have students at its heart, promoting a love of learning across all subject areas.
  • Offering a broad, balanced, relevant, differentiated, progressive and coherent curriculum to meet the needs of young people of all abilities at the College
  • Work with Partner Primary Schools to ease transition and provide appropriate pathways to engage all learners at KS3
  • Equipping students with high quality functional skills, including key literacy, ICT and numeracy levels
  • Upskill our staff and students through the use of Disciplinary Literacy training to unlock the curriculum for all learners regardless of their ability
  • Develop students’ personal moral values, respect for religious values and tolerance of other races beliefs and ways of
  • Encouraging students to develop lively, inquiring minds
  • Create a curriculum where all students are inspired and supported to achieve
  • Developing an awareness of spiritual, social, moral and multi-cultural understanding
  • Encourage habits of independent learning through the use of robust ILO’s to become resilient learners
  • Supporting learning needs of SEND students to meet very individual needs
  • Encouraging out of class learning to enrich all students’ education and build upon cultural capital
  • Ensure that the curriculum incorporates, and is improved and extended by HTCS’s STEM identity
  • Providing opportunities to prepare students for KS4 and beyond
  • Providing high quality careers education so students are prepared for their next stage of learning and help students understand the world in which they live
  • Encouraging students to engage with an enhanced curriculum to stretch and challenge our more and most able learners

Implementation

Three-Year Key Stage Three Curriculum Model
10-day cycle, 50 x 1 hour lessons. Comprised as follows:

  • English – 8 hours
  • Maths – 8 hours
  • Science – 6 hours
  • Geography – 4 hours
  • History – 3 hours
  • CPE – 2 hours
  • MFL – 4 hours French (Option to study Spanish as a second language in Year 8 and 9)
  • PE – 4 hours
  • D&T/Food – 3 hours
  • Computer Science – 2 hours
  • PSHCE – 1 hour
  • Year 7 Creativity – 2 hours Art, 1 hour of Music, and 1 hour of Drama per fortnight
  • Year 8 Creativity – 1 hour each of Art, Drama, Music and Photography
  • Year 9 Creativity – Students opt for 2 of the following: Drama, Dance, Art, Music or Photography; 2 hours of each option

In Year 7, students are divided into three equally weighted sections to enable timetabling to take place. The number of groups in each section will be the same, but is determined by the number of students joining the College. The principle is that average class sizes will be between 25 and 28 students. In KS3, we have a varied approach to setting students; in year 7 groups are set according to their ability in the following faculty areas: Discovery, Mathematics and Sport Science. In Creativity, MFL, Communications (Year 7 only), World Affairs and Technology and Enterprise, Faculty settings are mixed ability.

In Year 8 and 9 World Affairs, MFL and Technology and Enterprise remain set in mixed ability groups, whilst other Faculty areas are set by ability.