Curriculum Overview

At Coundon Court, we work tirelessly to ensure that our students have a Quality of Education that will open as many doors as possible for our students.

We provide students with an ambitious curriculum that provides a broad and balanced experience, designed for our students. Above all, our curriculum is centered on the Coundon Court student, striving for academic excellence in public examinations as well as rewarding enrichment achievements both within school and within the wider world.

Our curriculum is far more than the delivery of a statutory range of subjects; it provides students with learning experiences that students will take with them for life: learning how to `think like a historian` or `think like a designer` for example.  As Christine Counsell said “A curriculum exists to change the pupil, to give the pupil new power.” Knowledge is power and we want our students to leave Coundon Court with the power to achieve a fantastic future for themselves.

Our Curriculum has been designed around the following principles:

1. Knowledge is powerful: “what” we deliver has been justified; sequencing, interleaving and retrieval of key knowledge has been planned carefully in order for students to know more, remember more and do more.
2. Mastery: we believe students can continually improve and get better at knowing more, remembering more and doing more. We value modelling and deliberate practice to implement our rich curriculum to support student growth.
3. Experiences beyond the curriculum:  Wider opportunities provide additional knowledge to support our students in making positive contributions to our community, city and beyond; giving our students the “tools” to direct their own lives and live a great life.  

We are aware of the importance of curriculum refinement at Coundon Court and our Learning Team Leaders use their time with their faculties for an ongoing evaluation of the curriculum: discussing areas of strengths, areas for development and further enhancements that could be made to give our students the best learning experience, one they will remember. Our experienced Learning Team Leaders use their subject knowledge and subject research as well as their discussions with colleagues at other schools to ensure that their subject area provides our students with the ambitious, broad and balanced, knowledge-rich curriculum that we have established at Coundon Court. 

The Core Aims of our Curriculum:

• To ensure that our students gain the powerful knowledge they need to access the next stage of their education: University, Higher Education or an Apprenticeship
• To deliver a curriculum that is knowledge rich in all subject areas
• To effectively sequence the curriculum, with a strong emphasis on retrieval practice and interleaving, in order to ensure that the curriculum is seen as a progression model across the 5 or 7 year journey that students take at Coundon Court
• To provide students with the powerful knowledge they need to build a strong cultural capital which enables students to be active citizens in and outside of their community.

Supporting all Students

The learning experience of all students is at the heart of everything we do at Coundon Court; the Quality of Education for our students is at the forefront of our curriculum design and Teaching and Learning strategies. We provide support for all of our students at a number of levels in order to ensure that all student are able to achieve their full potential at Coundon Court:

• Quality First Teaching is our focus for all- tasks and activities are carefully sequenced and delivered in order to allow students to build on their knowledge and understanding, making the progress they need in the classroom setting, with all students accessing the same level of powerful knowledge needed in each subject area
• Effective modelling of tasks and activities to ensure that all students are able to access the learning and be successful: using I do, We do and You do as a teaching strategy in order to build knowledge and scaffold support before completing independent work.
• Students who require additional support in Literacy and Numeracy in order to be ready to access their Secondary Education receive additional support outside of lessons in order to close the gaps in their knowledge using small group work to support their learning.
• The Coundon Way of consistency and clarity is evident across all classrooms with teachers all using the same structure across their lesson as well as the same common language of SLANT to ensure classroom expectations are met at all times and the cognitive load on our students is reduced in order for all students to achieve success.

If you wish to receive further information regarding our curriculum, please send an email to admin@coundoncourt and mark it FAO Miss N Hunt.

Key Stage 3 Coundon Court Curriculum

At Key Stage 3, the Coundon Court curriculum doesn’t just offer the full National Curriculum to our students but it provides a knowledge rich curriculum that promotes a love of learning across a wide range of subjects. Our curriculum has been set up to promote the EBacc experience at Key Stage 4 as part of the 5 to 7 year journey that students will take across their time with us at Coundon Court. At Coundon Court, we recognise the importance of our students being able to compete with others on both an academic and a personal and social level in order to achieve success in their lives.  Coundon Court students are immersed into their subjects to gain a full learning experience that focuses on more than statutory requirements and underpins the core aims of our curriculum: giving students the powerful knowledge they need to be an active citizen with a full understanding of the world around them.

At Coundon Court, we have a three-year Key Stage 3 that promotes the value and importance of all subjects as individual disciplines giving students access to an exciting curriculum throughout their time in Key Stage 3. In Year 9, our students are supported to engage in selecting their subject areas for further study at GCSE. This process is carefully managed through a tailored programme, support from tutors or the SEND team where needed and additional interview opportunities with the Senior Leadership team in order to ensure that all students have the best chance to achieve during the next stages of their education. It is important to note that whilst we are committed to ensuring that all students in Year 9 achieve the Key Stage 3 National Curriculum and meet the demands of the powerful knowledge that our Learning Team Leaders have selected, we also use Year 9 to begin the bridge into GCSE in our English, Maths and Science lessons to support our students when they do begin their courses.

All of the above curriculum plans ensure that no students is left behind and all are able to make progress.