Our school vision statement challenges each student to Be Your Best Self
We want all students to maximise their potential through excellent academic and personal development and to achieve fulfilment in their current and future lives. Our curriculum enables students to develop the knowledge, understanding, skills and personal qualities they need to participate confidently in modern Britain and the wider world. Our four staff values reinforce and inform this commitment:
- Students considered first;
- High expectations – no limitations;
- The best support for each student;
- The optimum curriculum experience for each student.
Our Curriculum Intent
We define the curriculum as all of the experiences offered to each student, including academic subjects, Personal Development and the wider co-curricular opportunities available through school.
Our curriculum is ambitious for all students. It provides breadth, depth, balance, ambition and richness, while ensuring that learning is carefully sequenced so that students develop increasingly secure and sophisticated knowledge and understanding.
Each year and Key Stage has value in its own right, while also preparing students for what comes next. From our work with partner primary schools through to progression into Key Stage 4, Sixth Form and destinations beyond school, we aim to provide a coherent learning journey. This builds on the existing commitment to continuity between primary and secondary education and clear progression between Key Stages.
How our curricula are designed
Each subject has its own distinctive body of knowledge, ways of thinking and methods of working. Our subject curricula are therefore designed by subject specialists and are built around six important principles:
Core (foundational) knowledge – the essential knowledge students need to know and remember because it provides the foundation for later learning and increasingly complex ideas.
Disciplinary knowledge – understanding how knowledge works within a particular subject: for example, how historians use evidence, how scientists investigate and explain, or how writers make deliberate choices about language.
Procedural knowledge – knowing how to carry out the methods, processes, techniques and routines associated with a subject, with increasing accuracy, fluency and independence.
Prior links – making deliberate connections with relevant previous learning so that new knowledge builds securely upon what students already know.
Future links – ensuring that current learning prepares students for what comes next and that knowledge and skills are carefully sequenced towards increasingly ambitious curriculum endpoints.
Disciplinary vocabulary – explicitly teaching and expecting students to use the precise vocabulary and academic language needed to read, write, speak and think successfully within each subject.
Together, these principles help students to build connected and increasingly sophisticated knowledge over time rather than experiencing learning as a series of isolated topics.
An inclusive and ambitious curriculum
Our ambition applies to all students. We recognise that students have different starting points and that some require additional provision to access the curriculum successfully.
High-quality universal provision is the starting point for all students. Through our Universal, Universal+ and Universal++ offers, additional and increasingly personalised support is provided according to individual need.
For some students with SEND, this may include an adapted or alternative curriculum pathway. Such decisions are made carefully in response to identified needs and intended outcomes. Alternative provision is not about lowering expectations: it is about providing the most appropriate pathway through which an individual student can experience success, develop independence and make meaningful progress towards future learning, employment and adulthood.
Reading and access to the curriculum
We recognise that reading is fundamental to accessing the full curriculum.
Students need to be able to read increasingly complex texts, understand subject-specific language and communicate their understanding effectively. Reading and disciplinary vocabulary are therefore important elements of curriculum planning across subjects.
We identify and monitor students who require additional support with reading and provide targeted intervention where appropriate. Intervention is designed to develop areas such as reading fluency, comprehension and confidence so that students are increasingly able to access the same ambitious curriculum as their peers.
Personal Development and the wider curriculum
Academic learning is one part of our curriculum. We also promote students’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, physical development, creativity and preparation for adult life.
Our Personal Development curriculum, careers provision and wider opportunities enable students to develop the knowledge and understanding required to make informed decisions about their current and future lives. Subject curricula reinforce these wider themes where appropriate.
We also value learning beyond the National Curriculum and provide opportunities for enrichment and deeper learning within subjects and through our wider co-curricular offer. The current website already demonstrates this breadth through individual subject provision and extracurricular opportunities.
Monitoring and developing our curriculum
Our curriculum does not remain static. Curriculum and senior leaders systematically monitor and evaluate its design, implementation and impact.
We consider both what is being taught and what students know, remember, understand and can do as a result.
Curriculum monitoring draws upon a range of evidence, including curriculum planning, visits to lessons, students’ work, assessment information, discussions with students and staff, and outcomes and destinations.
We also consider the experiences and outcomes of different groups of students, including students with SEND and disadvantaged students, so that we can evaluate how successfully all students are accessing and progressing through the curriculum.
Curriculum review considers:
- whether core, disciplinary and procedural knowledge is being learned securely;
- how successfully students connect new learning to prior knowledge;
- whether curriculum sequencing prepares students effectively for future learning;
- students’ understanding and use of disciplinary vocabulary; and
- whether the curriculum remains appropriately ambitious, accessible and challenging for all.
The findings from monitoring inform curriculum development and professional learning. In this way, our curriculum continues to evolve in response to evidence about students’ learning and outcomes as well as their needs, expectations and aspirations.
Our curriculum therefore continues to evolve in response to evidence about students’ learning and outcomes, alongside their needs, expectations and aspirations.nd student destinations demonstrate that students achieve well with our Key Stage 4 curriculum subjects which provide high quality progression routes to sixth form study programmes, and beyond.
Key Stage 3
Our students receive a rich and varied programme throughout Years 7, 8 and 9. Our three-year Key Stage 3 curriculum is designed to ensure that students develop strong knowledge and understanding across all of their subjects, including those they may choose not to continue at Key Stage 4.
We do not routinely narrow the curriculum at Key Stage 3. Students experience a broad range of National Curriculum subjects alongside Religious Education and additional subjects that contribute to the richness of their curriculum experience.
Year 7
Students study:
Six hours per fortnight: English, Mathematics and Science.
Four hours per fortnight: Physical Education.
Three hours per fortnight: Geography, History, French and German.
Two hours per fortnight: Art, Computing, Design Technology, Drama, Food and Textiles Technology, Personal Development, Music and Religious Education.
Apart from Mathematics and Science, where broad setting takes place, and PE, where some students are grouped according to ability within particular disciplines, subjects are taught in mixed-ability curriculum groups. This supports transition from Key Stage 2 and reflects our ethos of high expectations for all.
Year 8
Students continue their broad curriculum, studying English, Mathematics and Science for six hours per fortnight; Physical Education for four; French and German for three; and Art, Business, Computing, Design Technology, Drama, Food and Textiles Technology, Geography, History, Personal Development, Music and Religious Education for two hours per fortnight.
Students continue to be taught in mixed-ability curriculum groups for most subjects, with broad setting in Mathematics and Science and some discipline-specific grouping in PE.
Year 9
Students study English, Mathematics, Science and Modern Foreign Languages for six hours per fortnight; Physical Education for four; and Art, Computing, Design Technology, Drama, Economics, Food and Textiles Technology, Geography, History, Personal Development, Music and Religious Education for two hours per fortnight.
For most students, Modern Foreign Languages consists of three hours of French and three hours of German per fortnight.
Students continue to be taught in mixed-ability groups for most subjects, with broad setting in Mathematics, Science and Modern Foreign Languages and some discipline-specific grouping in PE.
Key Stage 4
During Years 10 and 11, students follow GCSE and other Level 2 courses. The Key Stage 4 curriculum combines a strong core curriculum with a broad range of choice subjects.
All students study English, Mathematics, Science and Physical Education, with Personal Development also taught in Year 10. The current curriculum provides eight hours per fortnight for English, eight for Mathematics and twelve for Science, alongside PE and Personal Development.
Students then select from a broad range of GCSE and vocational and technical qualifications. Our curriculum is designed to allow students to pursue their interests, strengths and future aspirations while maintaining appropriate breadth and challenge.
Current choices include subjects across the humanities, languages, arts, technologies, computing, business and economics, health and social care, sport and other vocational and technical areas. Full details of the courses available in each options cycle are provided through our Key Stage 4 Options information.
For a small number of students, an appropriately personalised pathway may include Preparation for Life and Work (PLW) in place of one option. This forms part of our wider approach to Universal+ and Universal++ provision and is determined according to individual need.
The English Baccalaureate (EBacc)
The EBacc comprises English language and literature, Mathematics, the sciences, Geography or History, and a language.
Students have access to all of the EBacc subjects through our Key Stage 4 curriculum. These subjects are signposted through Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance and the Year 9 options process.
We also recognise the significant value of creative subjects, vocational and technical qualifications, design and technology, business and economics and our other curriculum areas. Students therefore have access to a broad choice of subjects rather than predetermined study pathways.
The Government announced following the 2025 Curriculum and Assessment Review that the EBacc will cease to operate as a headline performance measure. The school will continue to review its curriculum offer as national curriculum and accountability arrangements develop. The existing website already notes this national change.
Key Stage 5 – Years 12 and 13
Our Sixth Form curriculum builds upon students’ broad education at Key Stages 3 and 4 and offers both continuity and variety.
Most students study three Level 3 subjects, although some study four. Students can also undertake the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), with appropriate support and guidance.
Our collaboration with Sherburn High School enables us to broaden the range of courses available. The current Sixth Form offer includes A levels and other Level 3 qualifications across sciences, mathematics, humanities, languages, creative subjects, social sciences, business, computing and other specialist areas. Some collaborative courses are taught at Sherburn High School.
The precise courses available can vary according to the options available to each Sixth Form cohort. Students and families should therefore refer to the current Sixth Form course information for the most up-to-date offer.
Find out more
Detailed information about the curriculum in individual subjects is available through our Subject Information pages.
Information about Key Stage 4 Options, Careers, British Values, SMSC and Learning Beyond the Classroom is also available through the Curriculum section of our website.
For further information about the curriculum, please contact Diana Bentley, Deputy Headteacher. d.bentley@tgs.starmat.uk