Curriculum Intent Statement

Curriculum at Felpham Community College

At Felpham Community College, we think about our curriculum as being the day-to-day holistic experience of the students in our school. It is underpinned by our school vision and values.

Our vision is:
To equip all students with the ambition, knowledge, skills, values and experiences they need to achieve beyond their perceived potential and positively impact the world around them.

We deliver a broad, inclusive and ambitious curriculum that extends beyond exam specifications and the National Curriculum. This for us is a fundamental entitlement for all students, and a vehicle through which we demonstrate our core values:

Achievement

This is at the heart of everything we aim to do – we want to ensure that our students gain the qualifications, skills and experiences that enable them to access ambitious destinations and have a successful and fulfilling life beyond school.

We do this by maintaining a wide range of subjects from Key Stage 3 (Years 7-9) through Key Stage 4 (Years 10-11) and into Key Stage 5 (Year 12-13), by ensuring that we deliver a challenging curriculum in a way that enables students to excel in their subjects, and by providing students with excellent integrated Careers support right the way through their journey with us.

Care

This is demonstrated in a multitude of ways in our curriculum. We consider student voice and student strengths in our offer and in our options process. Our personal development curriculum is thorough and extensive – it covers all aspects of PSHE, Citizenship, Sex and Relationships and Religious Education, both statutory and advised, across all Key Stages, and is constantly developed in response to the changing needs of our cohort.

Building independence and resilience in terms of students’ studies and wellbeing is also core; from transition through to public examinations and beyond, careful thought and planning goes into stage-related support, e.g. Focused literacy intervention in Year 7, options support in Year 9, and study support in Year 11.

As a UNICEF Rights Respecting Gold Award-holding school, we are fully committed to supporting the rights of the child, and our curriculum, our ethos and the support we offer is grounded in the Articles outlined in their framework.

Equity

At FCC this means that we take time to know our students well as learners and as people, and we strive to provide whatever is necessary for each one of them to succeed at the highest level, regardless of the barriers they might face.

To support this, our curriculum is fully inclusive, in that all our students have access to the full range of subjects and experiences. For example, everyone has the opportunity to study a language, and with four options at Key Stage 4 from September 2024, students will benefit from increased opportunities to combine EBacc subjects with creative ones – increasing choice, breadth, enjoyment, and challenge. A further example of this is our Level 2 Pathway at Sixth Form.

Through our academic teams and teaching Year Leaders, alongside our specialist SEND team, we work hard with each student, overcoming barriers to learning and progress.  Our universal offer to all students, through adaptive teaching, promotes careful thought about provision and delivery, and we complement that where necessary, through additional support.

Curriculum Planning, Delivery and Assessment

We take a carefully thought-out and systematic approach to ensure that our curriculum offer is ‘balanced, rigorous, coherent, vertically integrated, appropriate, focused, relevant’ (D.Wiliam).

Content, knowledge, and skills are also carefully considered and logically sequenced over time, as a ‘learning journey,’ together with opportunities to develop and address gaps in student literacy, particularly through a focus on the explicit teaching of reading and vocabulary.

Delivery:
Each fortnight of our two-week timetable is made up of 60 lessons of 50 mins. Quality first teaching is key to the success of the curriculum.  Excellent teaching and learning leads to successful outcomes, excellent student behaviour, and positive wellbeing; this is underpinned by the Felpham Five:
Challenge – the provision of demanding work that causes students to think deeply and engage in healthy and productive struggle, against an ethos where high-level language is celebrated.
Planning – teachers using a variety of data to shape students’ understanding and progression through setting and adjusting pace and challenge, whilst responding to the needs of the students in front of them.
Modelling – supporting students to grasp processes and concepts through providing models and examples – enabling them to focus on each step involved in understanding new material, so that they can apply it to new situations in independent practice.
Questioning – building on Coe’s adage that ‘Learning happens when people have to think hard’, thinking is unlocked using strategies including Cold Call; No Opt Out; Check for Understanding; Probing Questioning; Think Pair Share; Say again – but better, and Whole Class Response.
Feedback – in line with EEF’s findings that feedback has one of the highest impacts on student attainment, a range of techniques is adopted so that ongoing reflection and feedback guides students’ practice of new material.

We strive to create greater consistency and alignment across the school, so that every classroom can share our collective knowledge of what makes for the best learning and progress.

Assessment:
We think carefully about our teaching’s impact on students as they progress through our curriculum. On a formative level, teachers check regularly for pupil understanding and misconceptions (through techniques such as intentional monitoring and low-stakes quizzing) and respond by adapting their instruction and support to allow each student to make progress.
Summative assessments are carefully planned and mapped through the departmental schemes of work and feed into our Assessment Calendar. This ensures we evaluate the progress of our students at key points in the learning journey and allows teachers to plan for reteaching and intervention.

Key Stage 3

Students at Felpham Community College follow the full National Curriculum:

*Students study both French and Spanish in Year 7 and then opt for their preferred language choice in year 8.

In addition to the subjects set out above:-

• Students at FCC also study Drama.
• Year 7 students have the opportunity to improve their swimming as part of their PE studies.
• Design and Technology includes a wide range of subjects, including Food Technology, 3D Design, and Textiles.

Key Stage 4

At Key Stage 4, all pupils study English Language, English Literature, Mathematics, and Science.
All pupils have the right to study the EBacc at Key Stage 4, regardless of prior attainment, if they choose to. To enable them to study the EBacc pupils:-

• Opt to continue with either History or Geography in Key Stage 4
• Continue the study of their chosen language, French or Spanish

All pupils also study PE, and Citizenship (encompassing elements of PSHE, alongside British Values, Sex and Relationships Education and Religious Education).

In addition, pupils entering Key Stage 4 in September 2024 will opt to study a further 4 subjects from the following:

Key Stage 5

At Key Stage 5, we offer a wide range of A level and vocational courses. Our curriculum ensures pupils can hone skills like oracy, teamwork, communication and project management. Pupils can opt to study from the following Level 3 subjects:

At Level 2, Students can opt to study our tailored Access course to furnish them with the necessary qualifications for their future pathway:-

Reading

Encouraging the value of ‘reading for pleasure and progress’ is an important part of our curriculum delivery.

Tutor groups engage in class reading of novels in tutor time, and students are encouraged to read aloud; they also regularly experience teachers modelling good reading practice in class.

To further support reading, all KS3 students have a weekly English lesson in our Library, which is situated at the heart of the school.

Where required, identified students are supported through a graduated range of reading and literacy interventions, including catchup booster sessions and small group settings for English for targeted students requiring maximum support.

The Extended Curriculum

We consider our curriculum to be the sum of the experiences on offer at Felpham – we take a holistic approach, supporting the ‘whole child’ in building skills and experiences.

We have over 50 clubs, groups and activities on offer outside of lesson times, and are proud of the wide range of teams and other groups that represent FCC outside in the community at numerous events, performances, competitions and community meetings.

We also offer a wide range of trips and activities that are linked into our curriculum or enrichment opportunities. Many have a careers focus, and all are on offer to the widest range of students possible, with support available if there is a financial barrier to taking part.