Curriculum at St Luke’s
Intent, Implementation & Impact
Our curriculum intent
St Luke’s is proudly part of the Ted Wragg Trust. Our curriculum intent has at its core an absolute commitment to transform lives through learning. Our school values underpin what we teach and how we teach it; they enable our students to live life to the full. These are:
- Showing respect
- Being Inclusive
- Giving hope
- Achieving your best
- Taking responsibility
We have welcomed and embraced changes to the way curricula are designed and evaluated in recent years. As such, our curriculum is:
- Evidence-based. When students start with us, they embark on a five-year learning journey with a strong focus on the key concepts within subject disciplines. We always ask: ‘What does excellence look like in this subject?’ and ‘How can we enable students to achieve this?’ The key principles underpinning our curriculum are derived from Dylan William’s speech on ‘Principled Curriculum Design’, October 2013. It is therefore:
- Balanced – All subjects are valued and we do not narrow our curriculum early.
- Rigorous – Students engage in regular low-stake assessments, homework and purposeful feedback for progress.
- Coherent – We make connections within and between subjects.
- Vertically integrated – Knowledge and skills are taught is cohesively, cumulatively and are carefully sequenced.
- Appropriate – It is ambitious and challenging, yet supportive and personalised.
- Built collaboratively to ensure that the content and delivery is of the highest quality. We review our curriculum regularly and ensure our teachers have the subject mastery they need to be the best they can be and that the students have the best experience in our classrooms. Our curriculum is never finished; it is responsive to our community, our region and changes in the national educational landscape. As such, we are always evolving; our teachers are skilled practitioners, committed to the Ted Wragg vision and the Christian ethos of our School. Our approach to CPD, pedagogy and teacher development is rooted in instructional coaching.
- Is forward-thinking and aspirational because we want to engage and inspire our students. We know that if we want to close the gap between the most privileged and the most disadvantaged, we need to be ambitious and uncompromising. We want our students to discover their aspirations and own unique talents and develop and hone their aptitude for truly independent learning so that they are fully prepared for the world of work and their post-16 education. Our curriculum facilitates our students’ growth, encourages their curiosity and builds a love of learning. It aims to develop resilience by equipping them with the knowledge, skills and understanding to become independent and responsible members of society and make positive contributions to their community. Our Life to the Full Curriculum supports and complements what happens in the classroom. We want our students to know what living life to the full means, so we are committed to ensuring subject teachers have the time and space to discuss ‘big questions’. These might be ethical or spiritual issues, or issues that link to current affairs. Teachers recognise opportunities to address these in lessons, knowing that taking the time to explore them will enhance the core curriculum through bringing bring their subject to life and enriching students’ learning.
The implementation of our curriculum
As a Ted Wragg school, we have created an ambitious learning culture in the way our curriculum is implemented over time and enacted every day. Our curriculum is designed so that it maximises the likelihood that our learners will remember and connect the steps they’ve been taught by following a progression model that builds on prior learning, ensuring comprehension of substantive and disciplinary knowledge with regular opportunities for interleaving and deliberate retrieval practice. This ensures that knowledge is profoundly retained and not merely encountered.
Our department teams of reflective and specialist practitioners work collaboratively to plan and deliver schemes of learning that construct a clear and coherent subject specific curriculum over the five years that enables students to make links within and across topics. Our schemes of learning intuitively build our students’ knowledge, skills and understanding over time, incorporating regular, personalised and formative assessment of their learning so that we are fully confident that progress is being made and knowledge and skills are firmly embedded in our students’ long-term memories. Homework supports this learning through regular consolidation and retrieval practice.
Our school year is divided into three knowledge cycles of approximately twelve weeks. Each cycle comprises ten teaching weeks, followed by an assessment week when all students in Years 7-11 complete exam-based tests/other assessments to analyse their strengths and weaknesses in current and previous knowledge cycles. This is followed by ‘Super Teaching Week’ in which teachers re-teach areas that students have struggled with in the assessments. St Luke’s teachers understand the importance of students responding to feedback.
Our broad, rich and balanced curriculum incorporates English Language, English Literature, Maths, Science, French and Spanish, History, Geography, Life to the Full, RE, Music, Computing, PE, Art and Design, Drama, Food Nutrition and Design & Technology at Key Stage 3. At Key Stage 4, our core curriculum includes English Language, English Literature, Maths, Combined Science, History or Geography, French or Spanish, PE and Life to the Full.
Our option courses are a mixture of GCSE and vocational specifications to guarantee a personalised curriculum and therefore maximise student achievements. A high percentage of students are entered for the Ebacc and we support all students in securing good literacy and numeracy by systematically assessing how appropriate their pathway is and making changes where needed. Students can choose from: French, Spanish, Music, History, Geography, separate sciences, Art & Design, 3D Design, Hospitality and Catering, Performing Arts – Dance, Performing Arts – Drama, GCSE PE, Sports Studies, Computer Science, Creative iMedia, Photography, and Health & Social Care.
We deliver our Religious Education, Relationships & Sex Education, PSHE and SMSC curriculums in our Life to the Full lessons, which is a five year programme of learning that all students participate in.
At St Luke’s, we have a two-week timetable. Below is guide to how many lessons of each subject our students can expect, but we are proud to review this each year and adapt to the needs of our school community and individuals.
| KS 3 | Year 9 | Year 10 | Year 11 | |
| English | 8 | 10 | 10 | 8 |
| Maths | 8 | 8 | 8 | 10 |
| Science | 8 | 8 | 10 | 10 |
| Geography | 3 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| History | 3 | 3 | ||
| Languages | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| RE and Life to the Full | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Visual Arts and Design | 2 | |||
| Music | 2 | |||
| Drama | 2 | |||
| Computing | 2 | |||
| PE and Nutrition | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| Option subjects | 8 | 8 | 8 | |
| 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 |
*Please see our options booklet on the school website for more details about the wide range of subjects on offer to students from Year 9.
Both exceptional pastoral care and literacy are the heart of what we do. Every day, our students meet with their tutor for 40 minutes and take part in our canon reading programme and mindful moments, ensuring they are building the cultural capital and knowledge of the world they will need to be successful later in life. In addition, students are offered a range of sporting and enrichment activities after school, which are compulsory at Key Stage 3. In the summer term, all St Luke’s students take part in an enrichment week, which includes trips abroad, adventure camps and STEM activities.
The impact of our curriculum
Examples of Big Questions
Examples of Our Big Questions
Art
What shapes our identity?
Is there more to life than meets the eye?
Where does creativity come from?
Computing
Should AI have the same rights as humans?
Do you have the right to say whatever you like online?
Who owns our data?
Drama
How can we brave the unknown?
Why do inequalities and social divides exist?
How can we fight for social justice?
English
What inspires people to write? How are they influenced by their culture?
How do people communicate ideas powerfully?
Why do people struggle for power?
Geography
What can we do ab out climate change?
Why do natural disasters happen?
Do rich countries have a responsibility to help poor countries develop?
History
What inspires people to stand up for change?
What has made the UK the country it is today?
Why do people turn to extremist leaders?
Maths
How do we get order from chaos?
Why do numbers help us to understand the natural world?
How can we predict and challenge events?
MFL
Why is it important to understand different languages?
Why are there difference in culture between people who speak different languages?
How have different languages developed?
PE
What makes the human body so amazing?
How does being healthy help me lie life to the full?
Does it matter how I act when playing sport? Why?
Science
What is life and where did it come from?
How can science be used for good and evil?
What makes the natural world so amazing?
Music
What inspires people to write music?
Why is music so powerful?
How do we create music?
St Luke’s is a wonderful place; is a school full of staff who are dedicated to improving the life chances of every student that attends the school.
Kealey Sherwood, Headteacher
At St Luke's, we are a Steplab Coaching Hub and use Steplab to power our professional development. To find out more about our approach to instructional coaching, check out this guide. To book a coaching hub visit to our school, email hello@steplab.co