Curriculum Intent

At Trinity Catholic College our intention is to ensure that all pupils, regardless of starting point or need, make outstanding progress through accessing a Curriculum that removes any potential barriers to learning. We are inclusive and ambitious for all. We want our pupils to fulfil their academic potential and to leave with the essential knowledge and skills to prepare them for living a rich and rewarding life in modern Britain.

Our Intention is to ensure that pupils experience a broad, deep and knowledge rich Curriculum. At Trinity we offer a broad, balanced, relevant and appropriate choice of subjects for all students regardless of their individual needs.  Lessons are challenging and provide stretch and challenge for all whilst supporting the learning needs of SEND pupils through scaffolding and modelling. 

The Curriculum at KS3 is broad and challenging. Each subject follows the National Curriculum and is planned and sequenced in such a way that learning builds on previous core knowledge whilst supporting future progression.  In Year 9 pupils select their GCSE options. Whilst we offer a range of practical and academic subjects from all Curriculum areas, the EBacc is at the core of our KS4 Curriculum.  Our rich and varied Curriculum at KS3 ensures that all pupils have studied a diverse range of subjects including Modern Foreign Languages and the Arts (Music, Drama and Art) so that they are able to make informed choices.  The Curriculum at KS4 follows the GCSE examination board syllabus. GCSE courses are planned and sequenced in such a way that ensures content is revisited throughout the course to support pupils with embedding and retaining core knowledge.

At all key stages the Curriculum builds on prior knowledge and prepares pupils for the next stage in their education.  Pupils learn essential knowledge and Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary, as detailed in each subject area’s Core Knowledge Overview, to ensure they have a rich in-depth understanding across a range of subjects.   At Trinity, we recognise that the design of the Curriculum should enable pupils to be able to store and retrieve knowledge easily from their long term memories.  Therefore we plan learning and build into our lessons opportunities for all pupils to recall core knowledge through techniques including spaced practice and the interleaving of topics.  This allows our pupils to build firm foundations for progression to the next level and success in summative assessments and examinations.

The Curriculum is delivered by subject specialists who use their specialist knowledge to provide opportunities for all students in lessons to question, analyse, evaluate and synthesise and develop their problem solving and thinking skills. In all subjects there are opportunities to build on and develop pupils’ numeracy and literacy skills, including reading, writing and vocabulary acquisition.  Curriculum areas encourage out of class learning to build pupils’ cultural capital and deepen their understanding of the subjects they are studying, for example, in English pupils are given the opportunity to visit the theatre to see productions linked to the topics they are learning. History and Geography offer field trips and overseas excursions and the PE department runs a whole host of extra curricular sporting clubs.   

Our Curriculum offer is more than just the subjects that our pupils learn; we pride ourselves on a Curriculum that has the Catholic Faith rooted at its centre.  The Curriculum at Trinity also develops pupils’ awareness of spiritual, social, moral and cultural issues through a well planned and sequenced PSHE and RSA provision   In addition, through our careers programme our pupils receive high quality careers education based on the Gatsby Benchmarks so that they are prepared for the next stage of their learning. Our Curriculum prepares pupils for making choices at the end of KS3, KS4 and beyond.

Curriculum Offer

Each Curriculum area has its own Curriculum Intent document. This document outlines the rationale for the subject, how it is assessed, enrichment activities and how the subject will support your child beyond school. Every Curriculum area also has a Core Knowledge Overview document for each year group. This document allows you to see how the Curriculum is broken down and sequenced over the course of the academic year and as pupils progress through each Key Stage. Each document details the important core knowledge we want our students to know and remember and the important vocabulary we expect them to understand and use. You can use these documents to see what your child has studied, is studying or will go onto study.

Click on each Curriculum area to see more detailed information about each subject area.