Our curriculum vision
Colton Hills Community School is an inner-city school with a diverse cohort that draws from a wide range of cultures, nationalities and identities. Our curriculum seeks to address the disadvantage that may exist within these different communities by giving our students access to everything that the world can offer.
Our school proudly holds the status of a School of Sanctuary, where students from across the local area – and across the globe, too – can come together to learn harmoniously regardless of their background.
Therefore, the intention of our curriculum is that we will offer our students the access to a broad and varied curriculum that seeks to equip them for modern life. We have designed our curriculum to ensure that students have every opportunity to gain worthwhile employment, attend a top university and have access to the social mobility that can change lives for themselves and their families.
One of the most pivotal aspects is making our students highly literate and numerate, ensuring that they have the fundamental skills necessary to take their place in society. Our skill makes literacy a central aspect of life at Colton Hills and addressing deficiencies in reading – whether due to prior achievement or being new to the language – is something that we attack with all of our energies.
We are aiming for world-class education. We, therefore, intend our curriculum to be knowledge-rich, deep in its explorations of topics, challenging, and with a distinctive, outward-looking, international feel. We want our students to make sure that our students encounter the best of what has been said and written throughout human history, and the chance to read these words is something that we hold dear in our curriculum.
We recognised the importance of grounding our curriculum in its wider contexts to enable us to fill gaps in our students’ knowledge. We are unapologetic in ensuring that our students have every opportunity to engage with as much powerful knowledge as anyone else in the country.
With these school contexts in mind, at Colton Hills we have built our curriculum around a series of thematically based Curricular Concepts that students will see in various subjects, enabling them to draw links and supporting them in making connections that might not always be apparent to them.
The intention of our curriculum at all stages is that we will teach all children at our school that:
Social Justice
Humanity is on an optimistic, positive journey of developing tolerance, enfranchisement and rights for all peoples, and we must all play our part in this.
Independent Study
Essential Links
Independent study is essential. It gives pupils the opportunity for research, develop independent learning skills and reflection. Through independent study, students are able to consolidate previous learning and prepare for future topics; extend learning in the classroom and assess progress towards their targets; receive feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of their work in each subject area and develop the skills they will need to in preparation for exams.
The term ‘homework’ is replaced with ‘independent study’ and all independent study will be identified to students by teachers as either ‘Pre’ or ‘Post’ independent study. These changes highlight the importance of this work outside the classroom and emphasise the way that it will be fully integrated into the learning that is done in lessons.
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‘Pre’ Independent Study – this could be to ‘pre-learn’ contextual information and develop understanding or vocabulary.
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‘Post’ Independent Study - This comes from what students have learnt in class. This is where knowledge and skills can be practised, applied or consolidated for retrieval.
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Flexible Challenge – Periodically, departments will be asked to set an optional piece of independent study (such as Microsoft Form) around a topic which is not necessarily covered in class but would be an opportunity to build cultural capital. Achievement points would be awarded accordingly and would feature as an inter-house competition.
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Extra Credit pieces of work – Each department will provide suggestions of optional homework projects that students can complete which is beyond their normal studies. Students will be rewarded with achievement points and will feature in a special Extra Credit Exhibition where parents will be invited to see all the excellent work completed over the course of the year.
How frequently should independent study be set?
Students are expected to spend two hours a day on independent study. This includes general reading and literacy, and numeracy tasks such as Time Table Rock Stars. Research conducted by the EEF states that students who conduct two hours of independent study per day perform significantly better than their peers who would do less.
Student planners contain the independent study timetable for the two-week timetable. This is so students have a rough guide of what they will need to be working on each night. It will also aid parents and carers in supporting their child.
Independent study timetable.
