Curriculum aims

Our curriculum aims are for all our students to be:

  • self-confident individuals who care for others and demonstrate strength of character
  • independent learners with the breadth and depth of knowledge to be empowered in the pursuit of their future pathways
  • enriched young people who benefit from a range of experiences that improve their lives now and in the future

Self-confident individuals

Personal development is a key focus of many lessons. For instance, across key stage 3, students receive one discrete lesson of global awareness per week, where they can reflect on and develop their own values and opinions. Also, students receive one lesson of philosophy and ethics (religious education) in years 7, 8, 9, and 10. Furthermore, students have pastoral CORE time for 25 minutes every day.

Relationships and sex education and health learning is taught in science, philosophy and ethics lessons as well as during pastoral CORE time and on flexible curriculum days. For further information please see the RSHE policy.

Students’ spiritual, moral, social, and cultural awareness is also woven throughout our curriculum. Alongside academic learning, we develop our students’ character by teaching our ‘CORE’ attributes, which include conscientiousness, open-mindedness, resilience, and engaging with others.

Independent learners

Our teachers work collaboratively to design subject curriculums that allow students to move from shallow to deep learning and gain meaningful subject understanding. We benefit from a wealth of subject specialist expertise. Our curriculum exposes students to the best of what has been said, thought, and created, building their cultural capital. We emphasise active learning, enabling students to apply knowledge through skills and gain metacognitive awareness of how they are learning, thus ensuring increasing independence.

Every year of a student’s academic career at Tuxford is valuable. Our curriculum is broad and balanced, maximising students’ life choices and opportunities and providing them with a solid foundation on which to later specialise.

At key stage 3, students receive meaningful exposure to four creative arts subjects, a modern foreign language, a full range of technology subjects, three humanities subjects, and computing. These complement the core subjects of English, maths, science, and PE.

At key stage 4, all students pursue religious education in year 10 and GCSEs in English, maths, science, and either history or geography. Students can then choose three options across a range of qualifications, including GCSEs in art, business, computer science, dance, drama, German, geography (in addition to history), French, food and nutrition, PE, philosophy, psychology, product design, Spanish, and sociology. BTECs in music and sport studies, Cambridge Nationals in creative iMedia, engineering, enterprise and marketing, health and social care and child care, and a technical award in digital information technology are also available.

At key stage 5, we offer a wide range of A-level subjects and level 3 qualifications that allow students to further their interests and lay the foundation for their future career pathways.

Our curriculum is fully inclusive, and we strive to meet all our children’s needs. An awareness of each student’s prior learning and individual needs lead to an ambitious curriculum for all.

More information on this can be found in our SEND section and our SEND and single equality policies.

Enriched young people

Our enrichment activities are diverse and complement the timetabled curricular provision. They include both extra-curricular and super-curricular activities, such as recreational clubs, trips and residentials, student leadership and community action opportunities, subject-focused clubs, trips and residentials, extra guided study, workshops, external visitors, and subject leadership opportunities.

Through enrichment activities, students become more curious, develop friendships, create memories, and broaden their horizons. School rewards, such as character badges and community awards, alongside external rewards such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award, recognise student achievements.

Further information

Please refer to our year page links to learn more about our curriculum. However, please note that the information on our website is updated only at certain times throughout the year, and therefore may not reflect our most recent curriculum adjustments. We believe that curriculum development is an ongoing process, and we encourage our teams to regularly reflect on and improve their curriculums to best support our students’ changing needs. We make alterations to our curriculum as necessary to ensure that our provision remains effective. We prioritize empowering our teachers to respond to student needs and to be guided by, rather than constrained by, written plans. Therefore, we ask that you use the curriculum information on our website as a general guide.

For further information on our provision for students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), please refer to our dedicated page. Further details on our SEND provision can be found here.