Curriculum Intent

The curriculum describes everything we teach at Glyn School. All student experiences are learning experiences and both in and outside of the classroom, they are shaped by our vision and core values. 

Glyn School inspires a love of learning and achievement that is founded on the virtues of integrity, kindness, respect and endeavour.  Every person is highly valued and encouraged to achieve their full potential. Students are supported to develop and express their character, empowering them to positively contribute to their community.

Our desire is to educate all of our students to their maximum potential. We seek to inspire our students not just academically, but as healthy, well rounded young people who will contribute positively to the society they will function in. Our values shape the intent for many aspects of the broader curriculum that our students experience. This includes the PSHCE, RSE and Great Learners Curriculums, and careers guidance and our extra-curricular offer. This is captured in the Glyn School Learning Journey and is reflected in a varied model of Form time activities, Year and House assemblies, dedicated days where the planned curriculum is suspended, and within the programmes of study of each subject.

The broad context of the students attending Glyn School means we believe that our curriculum should be financially sustainable and shaped in a way that is right for our students. To this end, our curriculum balances a core curriculum aligned with our values, alongside students’ freedom to choose what is right for them. Curriculum allocation and mapping supports outcomes in English, Maths and Science, which significantly impact on the life opportunities of young people. Teaching contact time in these subject areas reflects this.

Glyn School is committed to serving its community, which we recognise is multicultural, multifaith and ever-changing. The curriculum plays a vital role in promoting and reinforcing British values. We enable students to acquire knowledge of, and respect for, British public institutions and services and to appreciate and respect their own and others’ cultures. Students benefit from a number of international visitors, including students from other continents and cultures. 

Our curriculum provides a mechanism through which we seek to confer cultural capital on our students. We want their education to be rich with ‘the best that has been thought and said’. “A curriculum exists to change the pupil, to give the pupil new power. One acid test for a curriculum is whether it enables [all] pupils to clamber into the discourse and practices of educated people, so that they gain the powers of the powerful.” (Counsell) However, we recognise that historic and present-day imbalances of power have denied many people an equal voice. Our curriculum design will consider cultural capital within these parameters and its ongoing review will attempt to address these imbalances by amplifying the voices of all people, including those with ‘protected characteristics’. Therefore, we will use the curriculum to build students’ cultural capital, but also to engage them in a debate about whose knowledge is powerful; to see the curriculum itself as a curated interpretation of knowledge and one which should be challenged and refined to reflect the lessons society continues to learn. 

The Philosophy, Religion and Ethics curriculum, which is compulsory for all students up to the end of Key Stage 4, provides a broad and balanced education on a range of faiths, religions and cultures. Form times and Assemblies are also utilised to explore issues of RSE and contemporary moral issues. Dedicated PSHE lessons ensure students are able to explore these issues in depth. Through many aspects of our curriculum, Social, Moral, Spiritual & Cultural education (SMSC), we help students to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence. We encourage students to accept responsibility for their behaviour, show initiative and contribute positively to society.

Ours is a broadly ‘knowledge engaged’ curriculum. We hold that ‘knowledge or skills’ is a false dichotomy because they are intertwined and interdependent. The knowledge in our curriculum has been selected for its value; “the best that has been thought and said.” It is, in itself, important because it takes students beyond their own horizons and imparts cultural capital. 

It is also important because when knowledge is understood through increasingly complex connections, it is applied in skilful performances. ‘Skills’ are tethered to the knowledge domain of each subject’s discipline. They are not easily taught discreetly or generically and are rarely transferred between subjects without sufficient expertise. We draw on cognitive psychology to ensure that our broad curriculum design ensures students learn, in the long term, by knowing and remembering more and practising lots, with feedback. 

At Glyn we have a broadly ‘knowledge engaged’ curriculum and knowledge organisers are a key focus of Teaching and Learning. They identify the key portable knowledge and vocabulary, which should be revisited, through spaced out, interleaved practise. Knowledge Organisers support our students in becoming Great Learners who engage in ongoing self-regulation of their own learning.

To read our Curriculum Policy in full, please click on the below section link:  

Learning and Teaching Policies and Documentation - Curriculum Policy