Curriculum Plans

Key Stage 3

Students are taught in mixed ability groups at Key Stage 3, with the exception of maths and science where they are placed into sets from Year 8 onwards.

In PE at KS3, students have 1 lesson per week taught in mixed ability groups and 1 lesson in setted single-sex groups; in Year 9 students are taught in single-sex setted groups for all of their PE lessons.

Key Stage 4

Key Stage 5

Students have the opportunity to take part in a range of extra-curricular activities including:

• Ski & Snowboarding trip
• Trips to France and Spain
• A range of PE clubs and teams: badminton, girls and boys football, basketball, netball, KS3 Wellness Wednesdays (after school football, netball, rugby, badminton)
• KS4 & 5 Art club
• Year 7 Science club
• KS3 choir
• KS3 & 4 chamber ensemble
• KS4 handbell group
• Theatre trips run by the Music, Drama, and English Faculties
• KS3 Language and culture club
• Library leaders
• Carnegie book group

At Swanwick Hall School, we have defined cultural capital as:

‘the essential knowledge and experiences that will help students to become successful learners and educated citizens, introducing them to some of the best that has been thought and said across time and across the world, and helping to engender within them an appreciation of the depth and diversity of human creativity and achievement.’

We achieve this through:

• A broad, knowledge-based curriculum which at least matches the content of the National Curriculum.
• ‘Intelligent backward planning’: ensuring that Key Stage 3 provides the cultural knowledge that students need in each subject in order to fully access the curriculum at Key Stage 4.
• A wide range of extra-curricular opportunities and regular opportunities within the PSHE programme to explore and reflect upon current events.
• An assembly programme which includes a regular focus on human achievements across time and across the world.
• A tutor time programme that develops students’ scholarly habits, literacy and knowledge of careers.
• A House system and school council that broaden personal development and provide leadership opportunities.
• A commitment to developing students’ reading, and a commitment to maintaining a high-quality, well-stocked library.

We recognise that:

• The development of students’ cultural capital is an important factor in supporting the development of students’ literacy – a key priority for our school – as the more students know, the more they will be able to understand what they read.
• Taking into account the particular context of our school community, developing our students’ understanding of the breadth of human creativity and achievement beyond their immediate place and time is an important priority for us in helping to broaden students’ outlooks and attitudes.

All maintained schools must meet the requirements set out in section 78 of the Education Act 2002 and promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development of their students. Through ensuring students’ SMSC development, schools can also demonstrate they are actively promoting fundamental British values. The government defines British values as democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. Actively promoting the values also means challenging opinions or behaviours in school that are contrary to fundamental British values.

Through their provision of SMSC, schools are expected to:

• Enable students to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence
• Enable students to distinguish right from wrong and to respect the civil and criminal law of England
• Encourage students to accept responsibility for their behaviour, show initiative, and to understand how they can contribute positively to the lives of those living and working in the locality of the school and to society more widely
• Enable students to acquire a broad general knowledge of and respect for public institutions and services in England
• Encourage further tolerance and harmony between different cultural traditions by enabling students to acquire an appreciation for and respect for their own and other cultures
• Encourage respect for other people, and
• Encourage respect for democracy and support for participation in the democratic processes, including respect for the basis on which the law is made and applied in England.

At Swanwick Hall, we actively promote and support students’ SMSC development to ensure they can contribute fully and positively to British society. The examples below demonstrate some of the many ways we seek to embed British values.

All students have access to a well-planned and balanced curriculum which promotes tolerance and respect for others.

• Students are provided with ample opportunity to learn how to express and defend their viewpoint in a respectful manner.
• Students are offered a rounded assembly programme which promotes all aspects of SMSC development.
• Students’ understanding of the democratic process and an appreciation of the rule of law is developed explicitly through specific units of work in PSHE and through regular opportunities to engage in voting and elections.
• There is a strong pastoral system which promotes well-being and safety and ensures that all students within the school have a voice that is listened to.
• Our clear behavioural systems allow students to take responsibility for, and consider the consequences of, their actions.
• We have developed an innovative enrichment programme which offers students new experiences, the opportunity to contribute to the school and wider community and to develop their leadership skills and mutual respect.
• All staff model the core British values and, as a result, the school has a strong respect ethos.
• We have developed links with the community and the world of work to ensure students understand the many positive contributions they can, and do, make to the wider community.

Please also refer to the school’s Safeguarding Policy for further details of how the school addresses the issue of tackling extremism