The way our curriculum is planned, constructed and designed.

Big Idea - What does our curriculum look like to ensure an excellent quality of education? What do we want to achieve through our curriculum? 

With the curriculum at the core of our thinking, we carefully considered a number of key questions to decide WHAT our curriculum should look like, how we ensure it is coherent, high quality and provides inclusive opportunities for all, how the thread of the co-operative values, principles and Ways of Being and principles run throughout and how it supports our vision being realised.
 

What do we want our curriculum to be? (Intent)

With this question in mind we crafted a curriculum that:

• is ambitious and knowledge-rich for all students- it is accessible and inclusive for all, regardless of their starting points ensuring all achieve exceptional outcomes regardless of age, gender, ability, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or economic circumstances; it promotes high aspirations and how they can be achieved.
• is broad and balanced- It is centred around promoting academic excellence and character development for all students, regardless of their starting points.
• is deliberate- sequenced coherently by subject experts, informed by evidence, research and cognitive science to ensure students develop deep, conceptual understanding of the powerful knowledge they are taught. This knowledge is built upon sequentially to form strong foundations through links with prior learning and future learning. Students are prepared for their next steps at each stage of their learning.
• is knowledge rich- ensuring core knowledge is interleaved with memory and retention at the forefront of its design. This enables students to remember the powerful knowledge they are taught and supports them on their journey from novice to expert. 
• is inclusive- ensuring an understanding of equality and diversity in the full range of subjects, PSHE, RHSE, Citizenship and enrichment activities are essential. 
• is inspiring-ensuring students develop the knowledge and cultural capital required to flourish so that they can understand, engage with and influence the world around them
• is relevant- designed to be a curriculum suited to the local context: ‘Failsworth /Manchester/ Oldham/North-West’ but also meets the demands of the national and global agenda. 
• reaches further than the classroom- developing students who are community minded with a willingness to involve themselves and volunteer, participate in enrichment, extra-curricular and leadership activities and who are successful in entering the world of training, education or employment, equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge, resilience, confidence and self-esteem to succeed as active members of society.
• is empowering- it protects and safeguards- providing the knowledge required for students to keep themselves safe and healthy.
• is values driven- it has the Coop Values and Ways of Being at its core.

What is the structure of our curriculum? (Intent)

With this question in mind we decided our curriculum must:
Have absolute clarity around the core knowledge at every stage of the learning journey.
Have absolute clarity around threshold concepts required to access each chunk of learning.
Have thoughtful and considered sequencing that is informed by expert subject knowledge, research and cognitive science.
Include skilful assessments that provide clear information to inform teaching and planning that is responsive in its approach to secure strong progress.
This has been achieved by all subjects designing their curricula around a centrally agreed set of principles and agreed structure with the following underpinning the design (codified on the diagram below): :

• Big Ideas and Core Concepts
• Threshold Concepts
• Hinterland
• Expert Sequencing- ‘Why this, why now?’
• Development of Expertise, Knowledge, Skills and Progression 
• High-leverage vs Cul-de-sac topics - breadth and depth of study
• Knowledge organisers- to support powerful knowledge and retention
• Expert Subject Knowledge by teachers 
• Principles of mastery at the core to secure a high success rate (Rosenshine) 
• Expert teacher cognitive knowledge
• Development of schema through generative learning 
• Evidence informed - using the best research, evidence and cognitive science available to inform decision making
• Consistent use of icons, colours, fonts, graphics and visual design to support CLT and support student with SEND (Dual Coding)
• Cognitive Load Theory, Memory Model, Retrieval Practice, Interleaving

Centrally Planned Curricula

All subjects deliver our intended curriculum through a centrally planned curriculum, created by our subject experts teams. The subject curricular contains the content teachers are required to teach and students are required to learn. This consistency in resourcing supports teacher workload whilst ensuring all students access the same, high quality curriculum across all classes. 
National Curriculum Coverage - Ambition and Intention 

Our curriculum throughout KS3 is deliberate and at least as ambitious as the National Curriculum. This means that our subject curricula ensure students are getting the full breadth and depth of subjects to which they are entitled.  This is important to us because it means our students are studying a wide range of subjects, giving them a fully rounded education by the time they leave the academy.  We ensure that all students have a full three-year key stage three before progressing to a two-year key stage four. It has been deliberately designed, with careful mapping carried out against key criteria:

• KS3 National Curriculum (NC) - each subject is mapped and quality assured against the NC. Each subject area covers the NC content and more besides. 
• KS2 NC - each subject is mapped against the KS2 NC ensuring no replication of knowledge or reteaching concepts already covered. Only consolidation and further deepening of prior knowledge is permissible. This has allowed for the full NC coverage and beyond to occur and for a deeper, more enriching KS3 experience. 
• GCSE - each subject is mapped against the GCSE specification. This ensures that the knowledge and learning sequenced in KS3 is cumulative and allows for gradual build up of acquired knowledge required to be successful in terminal examinations. This also ensures that GCSE content is not exposed too early.
• Students in Year 10 and 11 students receive an additional ‘Period 6’ on 2 nights each week, allowing for targeted, small group tuition by specialist teachers in areas that need further development. 

This has led to an innovative approach to curriculum design. We run a 3 year KS3 model, but in terms of sequencing & curriculum design, we have designed a 5 year ‘through-curriculum’ model. This is intentional & is what is most suitable for our approach, philosophy and curriculum design approaches to generative knowledge acquisition.