Our Curriculum Rationale

At St Bede’s our curriculum is built upon our context and a vision that our students will make the world a better place. This vision encompasses the goal that they will reach their full academic and personal potential. Our context is a semi-rural area, an overall high academic intake and a high performing school. The location means that the local labour market index is dominated by small businesses employing less than 10 people. However, we know that many of our students chose to travel for their further and higher education. Therefore, our curriculum must seek to develop a broad range of skills, bespoke to each student, in order that they can be successful in the varied futures they have the opportunity to undertake.

Our KS3 curriculum offers students a broad and balanced opportunity to study a wide range of subjects for three years. During this time students are encouraged to develop skills that will support their ability to learn in the coming years ahead. The curriculum is also designed to give a broad range of experiences before option choices are made during KS4, KS5 and beyond. The focus of the study in KS3 is very much focussed on the development of metacognitive skills which can act as a foundation for future academic success.

Our KS4 curriculum offers a breadth of subjects which are offered to all students. Students can choose which subjects best suit their skills and ambitions during the options process. All students will study ten subjects.
All students will study: Religious Studies, at least two sciences, English Language, English Literature and Mathematics. In addition, they will follow non-examinable courses in Citizenship/PSHE and general PE.
We aim to provide a curriculum that allows students to meet academic thresholds that are highly regarded by employers, universities and the government. Therefore, we strongly advise students with high academic attainment to study a humanities subject and language.