Our curriculum

Curriculum Principles and Intent

Our Mission is to challenge educational and social disadvantage in the North.

All our students are entitled to a curriculum and to the powerful knowledge which will liberate them by opening doors, maximising their life chances and help them to contribute to the human conversation. Powerful knowledge is defined as being cognitively superior to everyday knowledge, verified through specialised learning communities and is systematic and open to challenge.

Our focus is that our students can excel on high quality A level and L3 qualifications, as well as access and discuss powerful knowledge that will take them beyond their exam specifications in a wide range of academic fields. We facilitate the holistic self-development of our students by providing them with the knowledge and skills to thrive in modern British society, expose them to experiences that broaden their world views, sharpen their critical thinking, and promote the development of habits of excellence that will make them hardworking, resilient and independent.

How?

• The core of our curriculum is high value A level and L3 qualifications taught by subject experts accompanied by our weekly lecture programme that promotes a broader view of powerful knowledge beyond their courses.

• To ensure our curriculum is effective in promoting long-term learning it is be designed to be remembered in detail: all subject curriculum is planned with coherence in mind, seeking to explicitly identify and develop the schema required for knowledge acquisition and effective retrievable storage in long term memory.

• The ultimate purpose of our curriculum is for students to know, remember and understand everything they have been taught. To achieve this, our knowledge-rich curriculum embraces learning from cognitive science about memory, forgetting and the power of retrieval practice. The responsive nature of teaching is built into planning, ensuring that sufficient formative assessment is included in teaching.

• The curriculum embraces and values the most powerful knowledge from a variety of cultures and traditions by sharing powerful knowledge from a range of cultures; we will empower our students to think critically about the world and society they live in. Our curriculum helps students develop cultural capital but also embraces and values diversity, promotes global perspectives and challenges the status quo.

• Powerful knowledge will be shared with all students through a curriculum of weekly Lectures presented by subject experts from across the curriculum that seek to present useful knowledge beyond their A level and L3 courses, that challenges, liberates and open doors for our students.

• The curriculum also encourages personal development through a well-planned tutorial programme to prepare students for adult life in modern Britain and for their next steps to either university, apprenticeships or employment.

• Our enrichment programme (compulsory in YR1 and optional in YR2) aims to broaden experiences, promote sociability and build valuable skills and habits. Students choose from a wide range of enrichment options within the themes: academic stretch, creative & self- expression, personal development, social action & volunteering and sports, health & fitness.

Measure:

Our ambition is that all our students go on to high quality destinations having achieved excellent qualifications, are fully ready for further study, are imbued with sufficient powerful knowledge and cultural capital to access and excel in any profession they choose and take an active place in modern British society as net contributors and leaders.