Curriculum Overview

At St Peter’s we aim to provide a curriculum that is:

Balanced
– ensuring the right balance and breadth of subjects offered as part of the curriculum
– ensuring students take the right amount of subjects for their needs, aspirations and next steps
 

Rigorous
– ensuring that the curriculum provides the appropriate skills, knowledge and understanding
– ensuring that the curriculum develops essential learning habits that will equip students with the dispositions to succeed in a challenging and changing world.

Coherent
– ensuring that the curriculum where possible is interconnected across subjects and is appropriate for the age and experience of our students

Vertically Integrated
– ensuring a spiral curriculum that builds on previous learning

Appropriately Challenging
– ensuring an appropriate level of challenge for students whilst taking into account what is known about the way in which students learn so as to ensure high expectations are maintained

Focused
– ensuring that the right skills, knowledge and understanding are provided at the right time or stage in the curriculum in order to motivate and inspire students

Relevant
– Ensuring that the curriculum content is relevant to the lives and cultural and religious backgrounds of our students

The curriculum intent and implementation of each department/subject can be found on the subject pages of the school website where there are detailed curriculum maps which are a framework for setting out the aims of a programme of education in each subject.

Curriculum Implementation

Years 7 & 8

The years 7 and 8 at St Peter's all departments follow the National Curriculum and build on the knowledge that students have gained at primary school to provide a challenging foundation for their studies in Key stage 4. 

The subjects that are studied in years 7 and 8 are English, Mathematics, Science, Computing, Design & Technology, Geography, History, Art, Drama, Music, Sports & Health, Religious Education, French or Spanish. Some students receive extra lessons in literacy to ensure that they have the necessary skills to be able to access their curriculum.

During Year 8, students choose which subjects they want to take forward to study in years 9,10 and 11. Please see our Guided Options pages for further details of this process. 

Years 9, 10 and 11

In years 9, 10 and 11 students study the subjects they have chosen from their Guided Options process in the Spring Term of Year 8. For some subjects year 9 is an opportunity to introduce students to some of the essential knowledge and skills they will need for GCSE level study. This is especially true for subjects that students wouldn't have previously studied in years 7 and 8 such as Graphic Design and Vocational Engineering.

Values in Practice

All students recieve one hour a fortnight of our Values in Practice (VIP) curriculum. This is based on our Character Compass and, has been specially designed to deliver all statutory PSHE and most importantly of all, does so through the lens of our Christian ethos. The religious background of students has been taken into account when planning teaching, and topics are appropriately handled. To find out more about our VIP curriculum please visit our VIP subject page.

In order to supplement students' discrete VIP lessons further knowledge skills and understanding around Sex and Relationships Education, Citizenship and British Values are taught from pledged time by dedicated department teams each half term from our core curriculum.

Character Habits and British Values

St Peter’s has a history of teaching essential thinking skills that develop students’ ability to learn how to learn. These are part of St Peter’s Character Compass. Character habits are taught across and within all subjects at St Peter’s living out our principles of HOPE and vision of ‘Life to the full for everyone’.

British Values

Learning to practise habits such as resilience, tolerance and empathy, practising forgiveness and freedom not only underpin our Christian values but also reflect how we teach young people about British Values and living life in 21st century Britain.

For more information on the curriculum we follow, please contact our SLT Admin team, using the email us form.