Curriculum

Durrington High School has an ambitious curriculum for all. This will nurture children who are inquisitive and reflective learners, with a depth and breadth of knowledge. Personal development will be threaded through our curriculum.

In order to do this, the curriculum in our schools will be:

• Rigorous – so that all children have to think deeply across the curriculum.
• Coherent – so that the links across the curriculum are explored.
• Sequenced – so that the layers of knowledge are built upon and developed over time
  
  

In order to implement the curriculum, we use the best available research evidence to inform our teaching.  This is based on six pedagogical principles:

• Challenge
• Explanation
• Modelling
• Practice
• Questioning
• Feedback
  
  

Learning is like a journey.  Children need to know how they are getting on with their learning, where they are in terms of their destination and what feedback they need in order to stay on track. This is why we put so much focus on formative and summative assessment. This tells us how children are doing, in terms of learning the knowledge laid out in our curriculum. This matters because it ensures that all children will have the best possible chance of experiencing academic success.

Our aim is that through our curriculum, teaching and assessment all students, especially those in at-risk sub-groups, will: 

1. Make significant academic progress over their 5 years at school.
   
   
2. Develop and retain the knowledge:

• declarative i.e. knowledge you can think about and say;
• procedural i.e. knowledge you can do;
• cultural capital (including relevant tier two and tier three vocabulary) that will enrich their experience and empower them to access the next stage of their education, find suitable employment and participate in a democratic society. 
  
  

3. Value learning for its own sake and develop a range of skills, aptitudes and personal qualities to take into life. These will include:

• non-cognitive skills (such as resilience, working with others, acceptance of feedback and kindness)
• metacognitive skills (such as planning, monitoring and evaluation)
• study skills (such as retrieval practice, spaced practice and dual coding)
  
  

All students are taught in five one hour lessons a day over a two week timetable and additionally will have a 30 minute period 1 with their tutor each day.  The timetable is made up of the following lessons per fortnight: