At Framwellgate School Durham we strive to deliver a curriculum that is relevant to all our students now and their future that which allows them to feel proud of their learning and prepares them for their next steps.
Our approach to our curriculum is driven by our values. We define these as:
Excellence – Everyone in our community will know and experience success.
Our curricula are designed to ensure that all students, regardless of their background or starting points can learn, engage and experience success. Our curriculum is designed to give all students, especially disadvantaged students, the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed.
The most for those that need the most – We will meet the needs of all our learners
Our curricula are designed to be adaptive and whilst we have an ambitious curriculum which challenges our students and provides them with a rich exploration of the best that has been written and said, we recognise the need to adapt the delivery of this curriculum to the needs of our students; to provide scaffolds which allow students to achieve but without reducing the richness of the knowledge and experience.
Known and valued- Everyone here will be celebrated for who they are and what they do.
Our curricula are carefully designed to ensure that students can ‘see themselves’ in their learning. The English curriculum for example, uses a breadth of texts to offer a diverse range of voices and the History curriculum explores the Civil Rights movements through time. Students have the opportunity to consider their local context through Art, Technology and Music and the breadth of the curriculum allows our students to find their passion; their strength and this is celebrated and rewarded through our approach to rewards.
Collective endeavour- We will achieve success together
Our students do not learn in isolation. They are a part of our school community and they need to understand and experience a sense of collective endeavour. Our curriculum also includes opportunities for students to learn about British Values including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths/beliefs. This is achieved through our assembly programme as well as our personal development curriculum.
Joy- Everyone will know and create joy
Supporting our curriculum is our rewards, extra-curricula offer and the behaviour curriculum which is about helping our students understand how they can make a positive contribution to our school community as well as developing themselves as a person.
Our curriculum is not static. At whole-school and departmental level, we quality assess, review and refine the curriculum to ensure it best suits the needs of our students, is responsive to the demands of the current context and the future workplace.
Our teachers are passionate about their subjects and sharing this expertise with our students. Subject experts design their curriculum around the principles of cognitive science; recognising the importance of careful sequencing to ensure that foundational knowledge is secure to allow this to build over time whilst ensuring that concepts are recalled and retrieved regularly to really encode learning. Our curriculum is constructed to take account of prior learning at each key stage.
Our teachers understand that they play a vital role in the development of students literacy and numeracy skills; regardless of the subject they teach and a consistent approach is used when introducing students to the subject specific vocabulary which will help them develop a rich and complex vocabulary.
KS3 Curriculum
Our KS3 curriculum is taught over three years (Year 7-9). The content in each subject is coherently planned and carefully sequenced to allow students to acquire deep knowledge, develop skills and build solid foundations for Key Stage 4.
For further details of the content & skills that Years 7-9 will be studying for each of their subjects, please see the Subject pages in this section of the school website. The below table shows the time allocated to each subject across KS3 (per fortnight as we operate a 2 week timetable)
|
Subject |
Y7 |
Y8 |
Y9 |
|
English |
7 |
7 |
7 |
|
Maths |
7 |
7 |
7 |
|
Science |
8 |
8 |
9 |
|
PE |
4 |
4 |
3 |
|
RE |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Music |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Art |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Drama |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Food & Nutrition |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Design Technology |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Computer Science |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
History |
3 |
3 |
3 |
|
Geography |
3 |
3 |
3 |
|
French |
4 |
4 |
4 |
|
Hours per fortnight |
50 |
50 |
50 |
KS4 Curriculum
Students make option choices for Key Stage 4, which, along with the number and breadth of compulsory subjects and the foundation in Key Stage 3, means that our students experience a rich and broad curriculum taught over five years. The overwhelming majority of our students will take 10 qualifications at the end of Year 11 in the following subjects:
- GCSE English Language
- GCSE English Literature
- GCSE Maths
- GCSE Science x 2 (some students take 3 separate sciences)
- One GCSE from a choice between: French, Computer Science, History, Geography
- 3 Additional Option Subjects from a full suite of GCSE and vocational subjects. For further details of the subjects on offer, see the Options booklet in this area of the website.
KS5 Curriculum
Our Sixth Form offers a wide breadth of courses. Students study for three courses, alongside a robust and extensive personal development programme where they work towards our ‘Broadening Horizons’ award. Please see the sixth form area of the school website for further details of what is on offer.
Courses offered
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