Curriculum Overview

Bolton St Catherine’s Academy Curriculum Vision

At BSCA, our curriculum sets out to create:

Successful learners who enjoy learning, achieve their excellence, are literate, make good progress and thrive in further education or the workplace.

Confident individuals who strive to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives.

Responsible and caring citizens who can make a positive contribution to society and demonstrate their beliefs in the eyes of God.

In meeting that vision, the curriculum should:

• Put students at the centre of curriculum decisions, ensuring it is driven by their needs.
• Provide a broad and balanced education for all pupils.
• Enable pupils to develop knowledge, understand concepts and acquire skills, and be able to choose and apply these in relevant situations.
• Support pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
• Support pupils’ physical development and responsibility for their own health, and enable them to be active.
• Promote and reward a positive attitude towards learning.
• Ensure equal access to learning, with high expectations for every pupil and appropriate levels of challenge and support.
• Provide subject choices that support pupils’ learning and progression and enable them to work towards achieving their goals.
• Promote the learning and development of all our children and ensure they are ready for each new Key Stage.
• Nurture the talents of all and celebrate success.
• Enable those not achieving age-related expectations to narrow the gap and catch up with their peers.
• Ensure students are challenged and stretched to achieve their potential.

Curriculum Design Principles – Curriculum Intent

Bolton St Catherine’s Academy puts curriculum design at the heart of its improvement model.  We have evolved over recent years to put knowledge at the heart of what we do in response to the deficits in cultural capital that the many of our students’ experience, the impact of 18 months of COVID disruption, and to an ever-changing educational landscape.

Underpinning the knowledge rich curriculum principles, is the work of Daniel T Willingham, namely:

• Factual knowledge precedes skill. Students need knowledge to provide context to their learning.  Without knowledge, students will not be able to think critically.
• Memory is the residue of thought. By thinking hard about things, students are more likely to remember.
• Deep knowledge is our goal. However, in order to achieve this, students will need shallow knowledge first and new learning is always connected to old learning.
• Proficiency requires practice. To achieve deep knowledge, students must practice.  Alongside this, we must also test how proficient students are becoming.
• Intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work. Successes and failures need to be discussed in terms of effort, not ability, meaning that all can achieve.

These principles are embedded in our secondary two-stage curriculum model – a Foundation Knowledge curriculum in Years 7 to 9, and a Key Stage 4 curriculum in Years 10 to 11; and in our primary curriculum starting in EYFS through to Key Stage 2.

As Hirsh writes, knowledge is ‘mental Velcro’. We build our mental schema by connecting new ideas to the knowledge we already have. The more we know, the more the new knowledge sticks. Our students have a deficit of knowledge, which we aim to make up. We also understand that, given the lower than average starting points of our students academically, it is vital to keep the EBacc at the heart of the academic curriculum.

Our Key Stage Three Foundational Knowledge curriculum is broad and balanced, to make students able to have free choice of three options at Key Stage 4, as well as picking their humanity choice. Historically students at  BSCA made their options choice in Year 8, however, over the last three years we have planned and implemented a change back to a traditional three year Key Stage 3.  This is driven by a desire to ensure that our curriculum maintains its breadth for as long as possible, ensuring students continue to get a diet including a range of arts, technology and EBacc subjects.

In addition to the taught curriculum, students complete weekly Independent Study. This is strongly focused on retrieval practice, as evidence shows that this approach facilitates improved retention of knowledge. Further information can be found in the Independent Learning section of this policy.

Knowledge drives the primary curriculum designed to deliver the core knowledge set out in the English National Curriculum. The core curriculum comprises English, Maths and Science and is carefully sequenced to ensure knowledge and concept acquisition and progression in skills. History and Geography drive the wider curriculum through an enquiry-based approach. Learners are required to take an active role in their learning by thinking deeply and asking and answering questions. The subjects: Music, Art and Design Technology enhance the wider curriculum and are delivered through a combination approach of cross-curricular and discrete teaching sequences. Other foundation subjects are also delivered discretely, namely: Computing, RE, PE and French.

Underpinning the academic curriculum is the Personal Development and Character Education curricula, which includes pastoral, social, emotional, cultural and personal education.  Our school serves an area characterised by high levels of deprivation and the majority of our students do not experience the gamut of more rounded, cultural and developmental opportunities available to their more affluent peers elsewhere.  Being based in an area with endemic issues associated with poverty, we believe that we have to do all we can to bridge this gap as most of our families are unable to do so themselves.  The purpose of all this is to ensure that all students can achieve their excellence – we know that good exam results alone are not enough to secure a positive future.  We also have to equip students with the necessary communication, social, networking and emotional intelligence skills to thrive in the future.

Secondary Curriculum Pathways 2023/24

Year 7:

*Numbers in brackets denote hours in a two-week cycle

Year 8:

*Numbers in brackets denote hours in a two-week cycle

Year 9:

*Numbers in brackets denote hours in a two-week cycle

Year 10:

*Numbers in brackets denote hours in a two-week cycle

Year 11:

*Numbers in brackets denote hours in a two-week cycle

Further information 

For more information about the support we provide students with Special Educational Needs (SEN), please refer to this separate section - 

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Section

For more information about our curriculum, please contact Mr Ward, our Deputy Headteacher - 01204 332533 or email contact@boltonstcatherinesacademy.org.uk