Curriculum overview

All pupils leave Ark Victoria with broad and diverse academic knowledge and skills. 

Our curriculum enables pupils to make connections across themes and concepts, within and across subject disciplines, building their vocabulary and understanding. It also develops pupils' ambition and independence, as well as fostering resilience and kindness. This leads to our pupils becoming respectful, curious citizens with a strong moral purpose. 

Curriculum design in Ark is informed by four key design principles. Our curricula are: 

Knowledge-rich 

A rich and broad body of core knowledge is clearly and meticulously specified. Knowledge is selected for its power in developing expertise in the subject discipline. Therefore, it is knowledge possessing sufficient significance, status, or influence in the subject discipline to support the claim that it is ‘the best that has been thought and said’. This powerful knowledge helps induct students into the great conversations of humankind, that they may understand, challenge and further those conversations. It empowers students to achieve in school and to live fulfilling lives, able to understand, appreciate, critique and, if they desire, change the world in which they live. The specific knowledge students should remember is precisely defined. Skills are understood to be domain-specific and their development is intrinsically linked with acquisition of knowledge. For example, for students to analyse, solve problems or think critically in a subject, they need a rich knowledge of the area of the subject they are required to analyse, solve problems in, or think critically about. 

Academically ambitious 

The curriculum provides students with knowledge that they are unlikely to otherwise encounter or understand without a teacher’s support. The content selected is ambitious in order to challenge the most able and provide a rich and empowering education to all. The extent of knowledge provides a broad and deep grounding in subjects, so that students have a framework within which they can situate future learning, regardless of whether they continue a subject beyond Key Stage 3. The curriculum is not narrowed by selecting knowledge solely for its utility in preparing students for later exam success. 

Logically sequenced 

Knowledge is ‘generative’ or ‘sticky. It attaches to pre-existing knowledge, creating connections in long-term memory and forms increasingly complex mental models (or‘schemata’). In other words, ‘students learn new ideas by reference to ideas they already know.’ Therefore, within units and across the whole curriculum, knowledge is positioned to build on what has come before. 

The curriculum sets out a logical journey that students need to embark on to get better at a subject. In this sense, ‘the curriculum is the progression model’; it is the selection and organisation of knowledge to form a coherent model of intended progression in the subject. As students progress through the curriculum, they grapple with greater complexity and develop both increasing conceptual understanding and disciplinary competency. This does not mean the curriculum always starts with the ‘easiest’ knowledge, but with the most foundational or facilitating knowledge. The sequencing of content also aims to pre-empt and avoid common misconceptions. 

Designed to support memory 

Learning is a change in long-term memory. The curriculum is structured to help students remember, not simply encounter, the core knowledge they learn. ‘Memory is the residue of thought’, therefore, tasks are designed to ensure that students are thinking about subject matter. In order to disrupt the forgetting curve, knowledge from previous units is interleaved in future units and revisited through frequent low-stakes retrieval practice. The points at which students apply knowledge from existing and previous units are explicitly stated. 

The curricula also builds: 

Resilient Readers: 

We understand that pupils need to be effective readers in order to be successful in life. We give all pupils frequent opportunities to read confidently and fluently, as well as strategies and support to securely access the full curriculum and read at or above their chronological reading age. 

Diversity and Inclusion: 

The curriculum also supports our commitment to diversity and inclusion and provides scope to engage and enthuse all our students. The subject disciplines of our curricula are inherently diverse: scholars, writers performers, thinkers from across history and around the world have contributed to the ever-evolving bodies of knowledge that comprise our subjects. An authentic and truthful study of a subject celebrates and acknowledges that diverse bodies of people have generated and evolved the powerful knowledge in our subjects, and have made our disciplines what they are. We support students of all backgrounds, experiences, and protected characteristics to access and enjoy our aspirational curricula. Our inclusive approach to curriculum aims to widen participation and engagement with our subjects long after students have left school. As a result, our curricula help students to develop an understanding of how they relate to the subjects they are studying, and use this knowledge to appreciate, critique and, if they desire, change the world in which they live. 

Virtues Literacy: 

Our curriculum builds pupils’ understanding of themselves as learners, as well as the importance of values and virtues in living a fulfilled and happy life. We share ‘world wisdom’ to help build cultural capital, so that our learners can take part in the great conversations of humankind. Pupils develop their passions and interests through our student experience curriculum and enrichment programme. 

As an Ark school, we benefit from collaboration within the network to create high quality curricula. At Ark Victoria Academy, we have a range of curriculum programmes and deliver curricula such as English Mastery, Maths Mastery, Science and Geography Mastery and the Secondary Music Programme. We also work with colleagues across the network to create Assessment Aligned Frameworks for subjects such as French. In addition, we have Ark Victoria Curriculum subjects which are informed by National Curriculum and exam board specifications, and created by our staff, for example, drama. 

What does excellence in the curriculum look like? 

• Teachers are confident about the core knowledge, skills and concepts and the relationship between them across years and phases 

• The curriculum is owned and shared by the community at Ark Victoria 

• Teachers’ subject knowledge is secure and constantly being supported through scholarship and reading around the subject 

• Common curricula materials are regularly reviewed and, where necessary, adapted to suit the needs of our pupils and the context 

• Teachers understand progression in their subject(s) and what excellence looks like 

• The curriculum is acknowledged as a constantly evolving piece of work, responsive to lessons learnt from teaching and learning 

• The curriculum, as a whole, is cohesive and builds pupils’ cultural capital, vocabulary, ability to question, their community spirit and sense of enquiry 

• All pupils become more knowledgeable in each of the subject disciplines 

• All pupils are able to critically evaluate and offer opinions to join in the ‘great conversations’ 

• Our curriculum enriches and is diverse and inclusive 

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS - Nursery and Reception) 

Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support that enables them to fulfil their potential. Children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences between birth and age five have a major impact on their future life chances. There are seven important and inter-connected areas of learning and development in the Early Years: communication and language; physical development; personal, social, and emotional development; literacy; mathematics; understanding the world; and expressive arts and design. 

Key Stage 1 (Year 1-2) 

In Key Stage 1, pupils build upon the foundations they have from EYFS. Pupils study English, maths, science, design and technology, history, geography, art, music, physical education (PE), religious education (RE), computing and personal development. Pupils use a systematic synthetic phonics programme (Read Write Inc.) to learn the important related skills of decoding (word reading) and encoding (word writing) and are assessed at the end of year 1 with the phonics screening check. 

Key Stage 2 (years 3 – 6) 

Pupils in Key Stage 2 study English, maths, science, design and technology, history, geography, art, music, PE, RE, computing, personal development, and a modern foreign language (French). At the end of Key Stage 2, pupils take national assessments to test their skills in English reading; English grammar, punctuation, and spelling; and maths. 

Key Stage 3 (Year 7-9) 

Pupils study 13 subjects in total, with 29 lessons per week. Pupils also have a Personal development curriculum, which is delivered in a weekly lesson. 

Core subjects: Maths, English and Science 

Non-core subjects: Geography, History, Religious studies, French, Computer Science, PE, Art and Design, DT, Music, Drama and Personal development. 

In KS3, the curriculum share is 48% of lessons in core subjects. Key Stage 4 

In KS4, we offer a full range of academic and vocational programmes. The curriculum at KS4 gives each pupil extended time to focus on a relatively smaller number of courses. 

Core subjects: Maths, English Literature and Language, and Science 

Some pupils study three separate Science GCSEs in Biology, Chemistry and Physics and some pupils work towards the Combined Science Award. 

Pupils also participate in Core PE lessons. 

Option subjects: Pupils are guided to pick subjects from the options below. 

In Year 10 and 11, the curriculum share is 55% of lessons in core subjects.