Our Curriculum

What are the aims of our curriculum?

At Sedgefield Community College, our school vision statement is ‘Achieve at Sedgefield’.  In practice, this means that: we want all of our students to achieve excellent progress in every sense of the word.

Our curriculum is both the foundation and springboard that allows us to realise our school vision, enabling every student to achieve and thrive in a learning culture where they feel a strong sense of belonging.

Through our curriculum, we work towards realising the four endpoints below:

• We make sure students achieve excellent qualifications at the conclusion of their time at SCC to support them in entering the next stages of their learning and then being successful in the world of work.
• We raise aspirations so that all of our students appreciate what they can achieve.
• We develop the wider skills and personal qualities needed to be successful.
• We build the confidence of our students so that they can compete and succeed in school and beyond.

To help us achieve our vision and the linked endpoint, we have a curriculum in place, which is underpinned by five key principles:

1. Ambition and Inclusion

We believe every student deserves a curriculum that is broad, balanced and ambitious.  We set high expectations for all and ensure that every student can access our high-quality offer, supported by excellent teaching and tailored scaffolds where needed.  Where necessary, we make adjustments to the curriculum studied by specific students or groups of students.  Our priority is always to provide the curriculum that best enables our four stated endpoints to be achieved. Where a bespoke curriculum of this kind is required, we ensure it remains broad, balanced and aspirational for each individual child and is therefore the best approach to allow them to thrive and achieve.

Our curriculum is underpinned by a traditional suite of academic subjects that sees all students studying English, Maths, Science and a Humanities subject (Geography or History) throughout their time with us.  All of our students have an entitlement to the deep and secure knowledge of these subjects that they need to achieve and thrive.  We use the National Curriculum to inform our planning and delivery of these subjects and are then ambitious to go beyond this.

A key aim of our curriculum is to equip our students with the knowledge and skills that will allow them to take their place in the rapidly changing society of the 21^st century.  We place great importance on Modern Foreign Languages and RE.  Both subjects have great intrinsic value, but also support young people to reflect on their position in the wider world and look beyond their immediate horizons.  This promotes a greater understanding of others, embracing fundamental British values including individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance. 

Throughout their time at SCC, all students have access to their own individual iPad to support their learning, and will also study Digital Literacy.  This entitlement reflects our belief that every child should be supported to develop the digital skills that are necessary to flourish and thrive in modern life.

We appreciate the importance of a broad and balanced curriculum, with many of our students excelling in a wide range of subjects including Dance, Engineering, Food and Nutrition, Music and the Visual Arts. We understand that these subjects, and many other practical subjects, play a vital part in developing skills, personal qualities and building students’ confidence.  We have planned carefully to ensure that the curriculum in these subjects is enhanced by a wide range of opportunities to discover and develop interests and skills in these areas beyond lessons too.  We have a similar approach to PE where an ambitious lesson curriculum is complemented by an extensive programme of extra-curricular opportunities to participate in a wide range of sports and for our students to develop their sense of belonging by representing Team Sedgefield with pride.

2. Rigorous Sequencing and Secure Foundations

We think of our curriculum as a continuous journey from the start of Year 7 to the end of Year 11.  Our curriculum is carefully sequenced so that new learning builds step by step, resting on secure prior understanding, with regular opportunities to revisit and deepen what has been taught.

We have a precise focus on subject knowledge and in establishing secure learning foundations for all students in communication and language, reading, writing and mathematics.  This reflects our ethos of prioritising ‘keep-up’ rather than ‘catch-up’, ensuring every student has the strong foundations needed to access the curriculum and for later life.  We work hard to prevent gaps from emerging, but where they do occur, we act quickly to address these and do so in a wide range of ways.

Further information about the curriculum in place in each subject can be found here.

3. Literacy Development

The development of excellent literacy skills is a key aspect of our curriculum and we recognise that all subjects have a responsibility to support students in growing their core literacy skills.  We want every student to become a confident reader, writer and communicator and recognise that these skills unlock success across the curriculum and beyond school.

Students read widely and regularly, through carefully chosen texts in lessons and dedicated library sessions. An important element of our reading approach is the use of the Reciprocal Reading sequence as a way of equipping all students with the skills needed to independently extract the meaning from challenging texts.  Whilst the Reciprocal Reading approach is used across the school whenever appropriate, dedicated Reciprocal Reading lessons also appear regularly in the subject curriculums for English, Science, Geography, History and RE.

We place a strong emphasis on writing, developing accuracy, clarity and purpose, with spelling and handwriting reinforced to support fluency.  We make extensive use of writing scaffolds to help students understand how to construct effective written responses and make extensive use of models to ensure students understand what effective writing looks like.

Developing communication and language is also a key element of the curriculum.  Key vocabulary is introduced explicitly and revisited often, so students can use a range of sophisticated and academic language with confidence.  We also ensure that all students have frequent opportunities for structured talk and debates, including daily tutor time discussions as part of our Thoughts for the Week programme and dedicated debating lessons in English, Science, Geography, History and RE.

Further information about our approach to literacy can be found here.

4. Representation and Relevance

Our curriculum reflects the diversity of our community and the wider world.  Students see themselves, and others, represented in what they learn.  We make meaningful links to real-world issues, careers and life beyond school, helping students understand how knowledge connects to opportunities and responsibilities.

In all subjects, students engage with different cultures, beliefs and perspectives, while developing respect, tolerance and British values.

Further information about the curriculum in place in each subject can be found here.

5. Wider Skills and Personal Qualities

We think about progress for our students in the broadest possible sense and recognise that our students must make progress in a number of areas if they are to achieve their full potential.  Simply put, our primary aim is to ensure all of our students leave SCC as exceptional young people with well-developed personal qualities that will enable them to achieve success for the rest of their lives.  As part of Laidlaw Schools Trust, we focus on the development of eight personal qualities:

• Ambitious - we work hard to raise the aspirations of all of our students, helping them to understand their full potential and fostering the linked desire to realise this in full. 
• Brave - we want our students to have the courage to make the right choices that will enable them to be successful and to always do what they know is right.  We focus on developing the skills and wider knowledge that gives our young people the confidence to know that they can succeed.
• Curious - we encourage our students to think deeply and to ask questions.  We design our curriculum and programme of wider activities in a way that exposes students to the wider world, developing their ability to think deeply about this.
• Determined - we want our students to learn how to ‘keep going’ when others might give up, recognising the benefits of persisting to reach the desired outcome.  We focus on teaching strategies that allow people to keep going when it is difficult.
• Extraordinary - we maintain high expectations for all and deliver a broad curriculum, supported by a wide range of extra-curricular activities, that provides all of our students with opportunities to excel.
• Fast - we want our students to have the skills and confidence to move quickly when there is an opportunity to take advantage of.  We don’t want our students to be left behind!
• Good - we want to ensure our students have a strong sense of moral purpose and to be kind, compassionate and tolerant to others.  We teach our children to make the ‘right’ choice at school and for the rest of their lives.

We make use of the ‘Skills Builder’ approach across the school to support our students in developing eight essential skills that they need to develop if they are to achieve success in every sense of the word, and to develop the personal qualities outlined above. 

More details about this approach can be found here.