Our Curriculum Intent

At Roding Valley High School our curriculum offers our students access to a range of broad, diverse and interesting courses and topics alongside subject specific skills to allow our students to become ‘experts’ and make excellent progress in individual subject disciplines. Subject specific skills are woven into schemes of work. Topics are planned to allow students to build on subject knowledge and link topics together across year groups. Our curriculum has been designed to allow students to connect subject content together to form a subject schema; rather than see topics in isolation. Our curriculum also allows for personal character development; equipping pupils with the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life.

Implementation

The ACED framework is the facilitator of the ‘implementation’ of our curriculum within our classrooms. please click on our ACED Mastery Booklet to find out more.

Impact

Our students will make excellent progress and be enriched by their learning within our lessons. Our students will have good results, a clear reflection of what they have learnt. They will ALL achieve highly.

At Roding Valley High School, we promote a seven-year journey. We implement a curriculum that is both challenging and creative to ensure the students are engaged and prepared to succeed at each milestone.

You can find our updated (2024) Curriculum Policy here.

Learning Journeys & skills /content maps

For each subject at RVHS, we 2 key documents.

Skills & content maps- mapped from Year 7-13. These are dynamic documents & ensure that our subject curricula evolves, develops & stays relevant. We also use these tools to make sure that we, as teachers, are making cross-curricula links.

Subject learning journeys- these are a visual tool for students to follow to understand how their subject is sequenced and connected

In Year 7, we focus on transition, reading, extended writing skills and encourage our students to take advantage of each and every opportunity that is presented to them. At Roding Valley High School, our intention is to offer a broad and balanced curriculum to all of our students, to give them the best start at secondary school while experiencing a wealth of different subject areas, so that they are able to make informed decisions when they choose their GCSE courses later on in their school journey.

Throughout Year 7, our students will study English, Maths, Science, Geography, History, RS, French or Spanish, Art, Drama, Food and Nutrition, Music, Computer Science and PE. Our students are taught in a mixture of banded groups (by ability) for English, Maths, Science, Humanities and Modern Language and in mixed ability groups for the creative subjects and PE.

Our class streams are Extension, Core and Progress Support. The number of groups in each band depends on what is appropriate for the cohort. We identify the appropriate band for each student using their individual KS2 SATS scores and their baseline testing. If needed, we will insert an upper band that sits between Extension and Core to ensure that the students are nurtured and challenged appropriately. Our curriculum offer also includes a strong focus on Personal development and student well-being.

In Year 9, we begin to transition our students from a broad curriculum into a slightly narrower one as they choose their GCSE options. As a school, we believe that the choice of subjects should be right for the student and we want every student to be successful. The students are split into 4 pathways for their GCSE options based on their academic profile throughout Years 7-9:

Pathway 1 where a student is encouraged to study Triple Science and the EBacc
Pathway 2 where a student is encouraged to study the EBacc
Pathway 3 where a student can study the Ebacc, but is only expected to study one of a Humanity, Language or Computer Science
Pathway 4 where a student can study the EBacc, but has been identified as a student who would benefit from additional English and Maths support and isn’t expected to study a Humanity, Language or Computer Science as one of their options.

All students study English Language, English Literature, Maths and Science at GCSE. They also have a core PE lesson each week.

To support the transition to their GCSE courses, the Year 9 students begin their Option pathways after the Summer Half Term break to maximise their time on these courses whilst also ensuring that they study a broad and balanced curriculum for a substantial period of time through Years 7-9.

We continuously review the curriculum offer to ensure that we are offering the best we can to our students. We recognise that outstanding teaching and learning is at the heart of a world-class curriculum. At Roding Valley High School, our curriculum is structured around the progression of core subject specific skills to allow students to excel in every subject area from year 7-13. Each subject will have a set of key skills which they develop in every single year group. These skills are then assessed, with feedback provided.

Please click here to read more on our Year 9 Options process.

Page updated

Report abuse