Cardiff High School
Curriculum for Wales rollout from September 2022
Cardiff High School’s journey to rollout
Cardiff High School has fully embraced the principles of Curriculum for Wales in its processes for the design of our new curriculum for Year 7 learners from September 2022.
Our curriculum design journey began through an exploration of what the Four Purposes meant for our learners as they developed as young people throughout their education. This involved working with stakeholders from across our cluster, including our learners.
Cluster voice
Through our early work we explored what it meant to be learner within the Cardiff High Cluster and what is important. We recognised that all of the schools within the cluster have their own unique characteristics but our young people share a common belief of what is important to all learners
What is important to our learners...
"We are a large community of learners who care deeply about the wellbeing of one another. Our local area is beautiful and historic. It provides great opportunities for us to live, learn and work happily. Cultural diversity, community and respect are the three main characteristics of our area and we are very proud of this."
Developing a Cardiff High curriculum vision
At the heart of Curriculum for Wales is the aspiration for every young person, as defined by the four purposes to become:
ambitious, capable learners, ready to learn throughout their lives
enterprising, creative contributors, ready to play a full part in life and work
ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world
healthy, confident individuals, ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society
We pride ourselves upon the quality of learning experiences that are provided at Cardiff High School and how this aligns with the Four Purposes. Our curriculum vision has been developed over time supported by classroom-based enquiry, stakeholder engagement and learner voice. It reflects our culture as an inclusive school community which offers a breadth of rich learning experiences to challenge and inspire learners and embraces the principles of Curriculum for Wales.
Our curriculum vision
To develop pupils’ understanding of the world around them so they can appreciate, critique, thrive in, and shape it.
The pursuit of the purposes will depend on the quality and quantity of what pupils learn.
Our curriculum design
The Curriculum for Wales framework comprises 6 areas of learning and experience. Across these are 27 mandatory statements of what matters. It is through the exploration the key ideas and principles contained within these statements that young people will develop their learning. Teachers have designed learning that supports an increasingly sophisticated understanding and application of the statements of what matters as learners progress through their curriculum journey.
Value, breadth and coherence within our curriculum
We believe that subject disciplines offer learners different lenses through which they can see and think about the world, therefore we have maintained subject disciplines with a view to exploring and developing the intrinsic links that exist between them. Teachers have used agreed design principles in order to develop our curriculum. These are:
value - the key concepts that are required to make sense within a discipline and how these develop over time
breadth – the breadth of subjects, breadth within subjects, and a breadth of perspectives
coherence - linking learning within and between subjects and cross cutting themes
These design principles have been applied in order for us to plan learning progression across the statements of what matters.
Learning progression
The Curriculum for Wales states 5 mandatory principles of progression upon which learning is based:
increasing effectiveness
increasing breadth and depth of knowledge
Deepening understanding of the ideas and disciplines within the Areas
Refinement and growing sophistication in the use and application of skills
Making connections and transferring learning into new contexts
These principles are reflected within our planned learning within the new curriculum. Central to this was using the agreed key concepts that underpin subjects and reflecting the statements of what matters to establish how we would like pupil understanding to develop over time though the planned curriculum. Each subject discipline has carefully explored how key concepts can be developed to reflect the principles of progression. This learning progression forms the foundation for learning contexts and the assessment processes that support them.
Learning experiences
Our learning contexts have been developed into exciting and challenging learning experiences across the curriculum. Our learners will begin to explore and develop the many natural links between disciplines as they build their knowledge and skills. They will also have opportunity to broaden their appreciation of the world around them by considering important themes that continue to shape our society such as diversity, local, national and international contexts. Through this we aim to realise our vision for our learners as young people who understand the world around them so they can appreciate, critique, thrive in, and shape it.
Year 7 timetable from September 2022
Our year 7 timetable has been carefully constructed to offer opportunity for our learners to experience the benefits of the new curriculum but also to maintain our high quality subject specialist provision. This is how it is organised in the Year 7 timetable:
Next steps
We will continue to develop high quality learning experiences as we prepare to roll out the new curriculum into Year 8 and beyond. We aim to keep our learners at the core of this process as we continue to develop our curriculum to meet their needs.