Curriculum Implementation

Leventhorpe believes that the National Curriculum is the ideal foundation for its 11-18 curriculum because it meets its statutory responsibility to:

“provide a broad and balanced curriculum to include English, mathematics and science and to make provision for the teaching of religious education.” (Academies Bill 2010)

And to:

“provide a balanced and broadly based curriculum which:

(a) promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of students at the school and of society, and

(b) prepares students at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life”

Our intention is therefore to provide a curriculum based upon the National Curriculum. To implement this, we provide a traditional core of knowledge and skill disciplines that are available to our students throughout their time at the school from Year 7 to Year 13:

We also believe that once they have been given the appropriate independent careers advice and guidance, our students can meaningfully elect to follow individually chosen curriculum pathways. To implement this we allow students to select optional subjects for study in Year 9, once again for Year 10 and a third time in Year 12, should they wish to continue their study in our Sixth Form.

It is not our intention to compel students to take the EBacc suite of qualifications at GCSE by taking History or Geography, and French or Spanish. We are therefore working toward the government’s ambition that 75% of learners take the EBacc suite combination through advice and a limited degree of compulsion.

In Year 9 students have a common compulsory core consisting of:

Students then select six curriculum pathways from the following list, with a compulsory MFL
and Humanities choice:

In Year 10 students focus their six previous choices down to four GCSE options added to a compulsory core of:

Students express four option choices, with the only stipulation being that one of the subjects should be either: geography, history, French or Spanish. Options available are:

*College vocational courses are offered by external providers. If you feel that your child might benefit from these please contact Ms Price, Deputy Headteacher below.

Email Ms Price, Deputy Headteacher

After extensive independent careers advice and guidance, many of our students decide to stay on at our Sixth Form and can select freely from a range of A Level and vocational options, provided that they have met the entry requirements. Our students are joined by many others from other local schools. We offer a wide range of courses and usually secure enough student numbers to run them all each year.

16-19 Programmes of Study

Every student who joins the Leventhorpe Sixth Form has an individually tailored programme of qualifications and non-qualification activities. This individual programme will have a core aim which is to complete three or more units of qualifications at Level 3. All students complete work experience and participate in non-qualification activities, including tutorial activities, supervised study, non-supervised study and our PSHE and character education programme. Students who have not achieved a grade 4 in English or Mathematics must continue to study this in GCSE retake classes. Our programmes of study exceed 600 hours in the year and student must attend five days per week. The list of qualifications currently offered are as follows:

Double options

Single options

Enrichment options (shorter courses)

Literacy and Numeracy in the Curriculum

We are convinced of the vital importance of the active promotion of literacy and numeracy since the ability to communicate and manipulate numbers effectively unlocks all students’ academic and human potential. The promotion of literacy and numeracy is the responsibility of all members of staff and particular of all those employed as teachers.

The 2012 DFE Teacher Standards state:

“A teacher must… demonstrate an understanding of and take responsibility for promoting high standards of literacy, articulacy and the correct use of standard English, whatever the teacher’s specialist subject”

We would also say that there is a similar responsibility to promote high standards of accurate and coherent manipulation of numerical information.

We aim to develop students’ literacy and numeracy skills through three strategic intentions:

1. To create a positive attitude about communication and the use of number;
2. To maximise the frequency of linguistic and numerical interaction;
3. To present linguistic and numerical information in common formats which assist the transfer of knowledge between areas of the curriculum.

It is the aim of every member of staff in the school to promote a “can do” attitude in students. This is achieved by modelling confidence in numeracy and literacy by avoiding such as “I can’t spell” or “I was never good at maths”. Comments should instead model appropriate confidence in reaching a solution, for example, “I can’t remember how to spell that, but I can find it in this dictionary here” or “that is a difficult calculation to do in my head, but I can work it out if I do this. Pass me your calculator and I will show you how”. A similar positive approach should be taken when students express a negative view on their communication and numeracy skills, to enable them to find a solution.

Staff endeavour to seek out opportunities to use literacy and numeracy skills, within lessons and activities. Judgement should be used so that literacy and numeracy activities do not interrupt the flow of learning, but the aim should be to exploit opportunities that arise. 

Staff endeavour to use a common language and common purposes when presenting literacy and numeracy information. We recognise that students find it difficult to transfer skills from one area of the curriculum to another, but that staff can make this easier when they use a common language to describe linguistic and numerical concepts and when they use recognisable processes and operations. As an example, it will assist students to understand plotting co-ordinates on graphs, if the terms x and y-axis are used across the school and that the y-axis is used if time is represented.

Personal, Social & Health Education (PSHE)

We deliver a broad-based programme of activities to cover those statutory elements of the National Curriculum not delivered in discrete subjects. This includes areas such as citizenship, ethical and religious viewpoints, health and relationships, e-safety, drug awareness, careers and economic awareness as well as any current issues in the media. This programme is delivered through timetabled PSHE lessons, form tutor time, assemblies, suspended timetable activities and guest speakers or visits.

We also offer a range of sessions to support parents in understanding issues and strategies to support their children.