Curriculum

As part of our vision of pursuing excellence, we strongly believe in offering a broad, balanced and inclusive curriculum, which caters for our students’ needs.

It supports them in fulfilling their ambitions, whilst also fostering a love of learning, the skills to be successful and an understanding of how they can be healthy, safe and well-rounded citizens. This successful curriculum approach is underpinned by high quality teaching and an emphasis on fostering positive learning behaviours from students.

Our curriculum statement of intent

Our curriculum is a knowledge-rich curriculum, which has been carefully mapped out across all subjects to develop powerful knowledge – knowledge which is systematically developed to predict, explain concepts and enable students to envisage alternatives. This knowledge is not just that prescribed by the national curriculum or by exam boards, but knowledge which allows students to gain a comprehensive understanding of the subject and foster a full appreciation for each discipline and its importance in the world.

To this end, our curriculum is built around providing students with a strong appreciation for academic subjects as well as practical foundation subjects such as Music, Performing Arts, Graphic Arts and Design Technology. Across all year groups in Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4, the curriculum offer is underpinned by a strong investment of time in English, Maths, Science, History, Geography and Modern Foreign Languages in Key Stage 3 and 4. These subjects, which form the English Baccalaureate (Ebacc) suite of subjects, have been demonstrated to have a beneficial impact on student attainment and on students remaining in A-Level education subsequently.

Another key focus of our curriculum is on personal development. This focus is developed throughout all aspects of the taught curriculum as a Golden thread, as well as being taught discretely through PD lessons, form time and assemblies. The taught PD programme is based around six key themes: Developing my character and values; Treating others with respect and compassion; Being healthy; Being safe; Being a global citizen; and Being successful in life. These areas fulfil the statutory requirements for relationships and sex education, RE and PSHCE. They also promote Fundamental British Values, develop students’ understanding of careers, and promote the development of character. These attributes complement the academic development of students to ensure they become healthy, well-rounded and effective members of society.

Our curriculum also includes a wide and varied extra-curricular enrichment offer through the universally extended day. All students participate in 30 minutes period 6 sessions each day.

At KS3, three of these sessions are devoted to Read to Succeed and two sessions are devoted to "Enrichment and Support".

For Year 10, three of these sessions are devoted to personal development and intervention, whilst two sessions are devoted to "Enrichment and Support". During Enrichment and Support the majority access enrichments designed to enable them to apply their learning, understand the applications of their skills, and be successful 21st century citizens in Britain. These further promote personal development of students. A small number of students also benefit from additional support with behaviour, SEND during this period.

Read about Enrichment at Temple Moor

We also use home learning as a means of consolidating and extending the learning which occurs within the classroom, which we encourage parents/carers to discuss and support students in completing. Where students repeatedly miss deadlines, home learning support is run during period 6, once a week, by Key Stage Phase leaders. Further details of our approach to home learning are available HERE

Details of the home learning set each week are accessible to parents through Class charts (classcharts.com)

Key Stage 3

At Temple Moor, we run a three-year Key Stage 3 (KS3) with a focus on breadth, balance and challenge. At KS3, students will study: Music; Performing Arts (including Drama and Drama); Design Technology (Food Technology, Textiles, Product Design); Graphic Arts (Fine Art, Graphics, Photography); Computer Science; Religious Education; Personal Development; Leadership through PE; and Read to Succeed. These subjects sit alongside the academic disciplines of English, Maths, Science, History, Geography and Modern Languages, which are also undertaken by all students.

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Core PE promotes learning and leadership skills through Sport, as well as providing benefits to students in terms of regular exercise and physical and mental wellbeing.

Read to Succeed is our school wide reading programme. It develops proficiency in reading, across a range of age appropriate texts, which research indicates allows students to better access the full curriculum and articulate their ideas. This is supplemented by additional support through the use of Accelerated Reader, for a defined group of students.

NB: We reserve the right, under exceptional circumstances, to insist that a student accesses their educational provision in an alternative provision to Temple Moor High School, that better suits their specific circumstances and/or the needs of the rest of the school population.

Key Stage 4

At Key Stage 4, students select four options which they choose to specialise in at greater depth. These options are undertaken alongside the core provision of GCSE English, GCSE English Literature, GCSE Maths and GCSE Combined Science/separate sciences, Personal Development, GCSE (short course) RE and Core PE.

One of these options is chosen at the end of Year 8, and studied over three years. The remaining three options are chosen at the end of Year 9 and studied over two years. This model is designed to provide students with an opportunity to expand the subjects they can study in Year 9 to gain earlier access to subjects such as Health and Social care, Psychology or Enterprise, for which there is no KS3 taught element, allowing greater time to explore these new subjects in depth whilst still maintaining breadth for Key Stage 3 subjects. This option also provides an accelerated pathway for separate scientists.

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Students receive extensive guidance and support in making informed choices which best meet their needs and aspirations. To this end, students are guided onto one of two options pathways:

Core Plus: a pathway in which students are guided toward studying the full suite of EBacc certificate qualifications (Core subjects plus a humanities subject and a modern language). Alongside this, they have two further option choices.
Core: a pathway in which students are guided toward studying one of the Humanities subjects alongside the Core. In addition, they have three further option choices. These option choices include the opportunity to undertake a modern language for students, allowing them equality of opportunity to opt to sit the EBacc certificate suite of qualifications if they wish.
Sustain: a pathway in which a very small number of students, requiring additional support with learning, are guided toward studying the BTEC Level 1 Work Skills qualification alongside three open option choices. The Work Skills qualification focusses on the development of employability skills and citizenship, enabling students to engage with employers, investigate apprenticeships and future employment and apply their knowledge to the workplace. Some of this time is also used to support students with the provision of additional Maths and English tuition. The three open option choices include the opportunity to undertake History, Geography and a modern language for students, allowing equality of opportunity to choose the full EBacc certificate suite of qualifications, if they wish to.

As a result of the strong academic foundation put in place at Key Stage 3, the proportion of students entering the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) certificate suite of subjects within school is well above national average, with 60% of the most recent Year 11 cohort sitting this full suite of subjects.

Further details of the options process can be found HERE.

Key Stage 5

At KS5, we offer a wide range of subjects which support academic and vocational ambitions.

Details of the Key Stage 5 offer can be found HERE.