Curriculum overview

Our curriculum intentions are closely aligned to our school mission:  

“At Ark Boulton, our mission is to provide a quality education that empowers individuals to flourish and make a positive contribution to their community, culture and wider society.”  

At Ark Boulton Academy, our ambitious curriculum is designed collaboratively our subject experts to ensure that our pupils learning is carefully sequenced to meet the needs of the National Curriculum and the needs of our pupils. Agreed, core knowledge for each stage of learning ensures that pupils build on prior knowledge whilst creating learning experiences that allows them to explore a range of concepts and theories.   

Subject knowledge sits at the heart of our curriculum. To help our pupils develop curiosity and perseverance, this is broken down into component pieces. These are carefully crafted into logical, well sequenced stepping-stones, which ensure all pupils are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to be successful within their school journey and throughout the wider curriculum.   

The student’s journey through their learning allows all pupils the opportunity to progress, through building on prior knowledge, making links between existing component knowledge and concepts, practising the application of knowledge and development of skills, and to enjoy the process of learning through regular assessment and feedback so that they can feel success. For subjects that have adopted an Ark Mastery curriculum such as English, Maths and Science, these have been adapted into our own learning journeys, to suit the needs of our pupils.  

Broad and balanced 

We Achieve this by: 

• In Key Stage 3, all pupils access the full breadth of curriculum so that they can meet the National Curriculum and make informed choices about Key Stage 4  

• Delivering a 7 period day to ensure sufficient breadth  

Knowledge rich 

We Achieve this by: 

• Our curriculum is designed by subject experts ensuring our curriculum is working towards defined end points.   

• Curriculum Handbooks include core knowledge and disciplinary concepts which are sequenced to ensure pupils build on prior knowledge and make connections so that they know more and can remember more.   

• Core Knowledge Organisers are in place to further ensure that pupils can know more and remember more through continually refreshing prior knowledge and accessing new content.   

• Teachers are secure in their understanding of what pupils need to know and show to be able to progress and build on their learning.   

• Teachers can build on their own disciplinary knowledge through working with subject experts within our academy and across the wider MAT.  

Recognise the importance of reading 

We Achieve this by: 

• Pupils receive 30 minutes of focused reading time (Mondays to Thursdays) which is delivered through our Reading programme. This is structured to ensure pupils are accessing the strategy which is designed to meet them where they are at and move them along, faster.   

• Students below their chronological reading age receive targeted reading interventions, daily.  

• All staff receive regular training on key signature strategies to use in lessons to remove potential barriers in the lessons.   

• Through our Schemes of Learning and Curriculum Handbooks, we have identified the subject specific vocabulary needed to develop a broad vocabulary for all pupils.  

Deliberate design sequence 

We Achieve this by: 

• Core knowledge and disciplinary concept maps provide an overview of the curriculum in each subject area, providing clarity over the sequencing across the curriculum.  

• Schemes of Learning are created for every subject. These are planned to ensure we are going beyond the requirements of the National Curriculum and ensuring our pupils have a well sequenced breadth of knowledge.   

• Formative and summative assessments allow teachers to routinely check pupils understanding and adapt their plans accordingly. These are built into Schemes of Learning, ensuring we are checking for understanding at pivotal moments within a lesson and over a sequence of lessons. Whole Class Feedback allows teachers to identify and close gaps in knowledge.  

Equitable 

We Achieve this by: 

• Ensuring all pupils follow the same subjects and content in Key Stage 3.  

• Ensuring we don’t adapt the curriculum; we adapt the lessons to meet the individual needs our pupils. Ensuring we select the best pedagogical approach to ensure equity for all.     

• Ensuring adaptation through scaffold up and challenge up.  

Ever evolving 

We Achieve this by: 

• Regular co-planning sessions enable our teachers the opportunity to work collaboratively digging deep into their lesson planning, explore misconceptions, discussing what pupils need to know and show to be successful and giving teachers the time to rehears their lessons and give their colleagues feedback.   

• Every teacher completes Intellectual Preparation to support the planning process. This allows teachers to plan specially for the pupils in room, ensure the needs of all pupils are met and to adapt their planning based on pupil data.  

Everyday excellence: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act but a habit.” Aristotle 

Our Approach:  What does an Ark Boulton lesson look like? 

Our lessons are accessible to all pupils, including those with SEND. Teaching is built on a foundation of Intellectual Preparation with a focus on teaching core and disciplinary knowledge.  Teachers intellectually prepare lessons considering the best pedagogical strategy to deliver the content to meet the needs of the pupils in the class.   

There are several common features to our lessons, informed by the best research that works:  

Data rich seating plan- To plan lessons that are tailored to meet the specific needs of the pupils in the classroom. Teachers annotate their seating plans with the relevant information required to know every child to include key adaptations for pupils with SEND.  

Do Now Activity – This is based on recall, supporting pupils in rehearsing the content knowledge needed to build on in the lesson. The DNA allows teachers to gather whole class data checking what pupils do and do not know.   

I/We/You cycle - Teachers plan their lessons following an I/We/You model. This allows teachers to expose pupils to new learning through a structured approach of co-construction and collaboration, before allowing pupils to practise applying their knowledge independently.  

As part of this, teachers deliver clear explanations where new learning relates to prior and future learning, with opportunities for cold call questioning to check for understanding and to expose misconceptions so that they can be addressed in the moment.   

Through this, our teachers model the learning process for themselves, thinking aloud as they go. This highlights the tricky moments, and core components needed to access the composite. It makes the thinking process explicit. This also provides worked examples which act as scaffolds for our pupils.   

To transfer new learning to long-term memory, pupils are provided with time for independent Practice. The more our pupils practise applying the knowledge the more fluent and confident they become.   

Intentional Monitoring - Intentional monitoring allows our teachers the opportunity to address misconceptions and trending errors in the moment and to prevent the ‘snowball’ effect from occurring. This requires our teachers to gather data in them moment based on their highest leverage component knowledge and to act on the data gathered by either, telling the pupils the error, reteaching it there and then or using pupils work to shows areas of best practise or to highlights an area for development.   

Feedback pupil work - Intentional monitoring allows teachers to ensure they are addressing errors in the moment. As part of this we also use live marking to ensure our pupils know how they are getting on and what they need to do to get better. Pupils also receive Whole Class Feedback where teachers read their pupils’ work and identify key misconceptions and points for re-teach.  

Self-Assessment - After reviewing pupils' prior knowledge all pupils have the opportunity to self-assess their work and upskill their answers.  

Homework – learning is consolidated through self-quizzing using core knowledge and supplemented by online learning where pupils are supported to apply their learning and teachers can monitor and identify gaps to close in teaching.  

Our Key Stage 3 pupils’ journey begins when we welcome our year 7 students as they arrive from our feeder primary schools. Our Key Stage 3 curriculum intends to equip our students with the knowledge, skills and character to go on to be successful in their GCSE studies and beyond.   

All Key Stage 3 pupils access our full curriculum form Year 7 to Year 9. In Year 9, as our pupils prepare to transition into Key Stage 4, they choose the subjects they want to study for their GCSE’s. Within Key Stage 3 pupils study a broad range of subjects, as listed below:  

We have designed our Key Stage 4 curriculum to enable all pupils in Year 10 and Year 11 to develop their academic ability and character that allows for our pupils to build on their subject knowledge, with a focus on practise and application.  In-keeping with our broad range of subjects, we commit to equipping our students with a breadth of relevant future skills over their two-year journey in Key Stage 4.  

In Year 9, as our pupils prepare to transition into Key Stage 4; they choose the subjects they want to study for their GCSE’s. We continue our commitment to offering a broad and balanced curriculum by offering a range of different subjects. As we continue to expand our curriculum offer, we are pleased to provide the following subjects and qualifications:    

Cohort 2024; All pupils will study towards 8 qualifications.  

Cohort 2025; All pupils will study towards 8 qualifications

Cohort 2025; All pupils will study towards 9 qualifications