Curriculum

As an Impact Education Trust academy, our curriculum is aligned to a common set of Trust-wide principles which are underpinned by our mission to challenge educational and social disadvantage. We believe all students are entitled to an ambitious knowledge rich curriculum which will open doors and maximise life changes.

At Castle Hall Academy, we challenge social inequality by providing a broad, balanced and sequenced five-year curriculum, which values knowledge retention and application building upon individual starting points that enables ambitious endpoints for all.
Our curriculum intent is to:

‘Create a curriculum that…

Underpinned by the National Curriculum, each subject specifies, in detail the knowledge children will learn. Teachers know their subject and their students well, planning and assessing learning systematically, providing feedback and adapting approaches that enable all students to be successful now and in the future. We have considered the knowledge and skills we want our children to have learnt and mastered in each curriculum area to enable them to be successful. Subject specialists ensure the curriculum is intelligently sequenced so that each phase builds upon what has come before and prepares for what comes after.

Our sequential curriculum is designed to be as broad as possible for as long as possible so that students acquire powerful knowledge that builds wider cultural capital. Students at Castle Hall Academy study a two-year KS4 programme, allowing for students to take an EBACC route, although this is not directed and appropriate high-value vocational courses. This is supplemented by a strong SMSC focus through our Personal Development curriculum which students have one hour each week.

The curriculum at Castle Hall Academy is informed by the latest evidence-based research from cognitive science about memory, targeting and practice in order to help children remember and connect learning. We want knowledge to stick so that it can be applied in a variety of different contexts and situations. We balance teaching with retrieval practice and examination preparation to equip our students to compete locally and nationally in assessments whilst giving them the ability to contribute positively to an ever changing and developing society.