Trinity Academy

Curriculum

The MISSION of Trinity Academy, as part of the Emmanuel Schools Foundation Trust, is to provide a Christian-ethos school of character that is for the whole community.  

We ensure that our curriculum enables our students to feel valued, challenged and inspired and we build our curriculum around the following principles: 

Character Education 

We build good character. We learn about good character, why it matters and how to develop it.  

Curriculum Excellence 

We are determined to achieve a personal best. We provide a broad, ambitious curriculum that ensures excellent student learning, progress and future destinations.  

Community Engagement 

We serve with gratitude. We use our gifts to benefit our community and environment.  

In light of this, we aim to provide a curriculum that: 

  • places a high value on knowledge; 
  • seeks to develop strong character in line with our core virtues of love, wisdom, fairness, self-control, courage, humility and integrity; 
  • supports the local and wider community by creating knowledgeable and responsible citizens, who use their unique gifts in the service of others. 

 

Curriculum Intent 

The curriculum is designed to engage and to support all students to achieve their personal best, regardless of their background, or their individual starting point. We achieve this by offering a broad and balanced curriculum, with a diverse range of both academic and vocational subjects on offer.  

Our curriculum is knowledge-rich, broad and ambitious. We prioritise the knowledge that our students need to retain in long-term memory to enable them to progress through each Key Stage with success and we provide opportunities for each of our students to apply their knowledge and to secure the skills which they need to embed long-term for them to be able to succeed in each subject area of the curriculum. 

Our curriculum places a strong emphasis on providing opportunities for our students to: develop their reading ability across subject areas, to enhance their vocabulary and to develop the cultural capital they need to succeed in the wider world.  

 

The curriculum is designed so that all students: 

  • have access to the same ambitious, broad and balanced curriculum; 
  • have opportunities to develop academic knowledge and skills, alongside creativity  
  • are guided and prepared to access a wide variety of different careers in line with their interests and abilities; 
  • develop cultural capital, allowing them to be proactive and informed citizens with a comprehensive understanding of the thoughts, beliefs and customs of other people groups; 
  • develop a lifelong love of learning, particularly within their areas of interest; 
  • are able to articulate what they believe and why they believe it, while maintaining positive relationships and dialogue with people whose thoughts, opinions and lifestyle choice are different to their own; 
  • develop wisdom, defined as knowledge rightly applied.  

 

Curriculum Overview:

In line with our curriculum principles, the curriculum we offer to students is both broad and balanced. It is delivered over 25 60 minute periods, in addition to 5 25 minute AM Tutor Time slots, which are centred around the ethos and the building of character, and 5 20 minute reading-focussed sessions. 

In line with our duties laid out in the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014, we take every step to ensure that all students are able to access the full scope of the curriculum. A summary of the ways in which we promote protected characteristics to meet and exceed the expectations of the Equality Act can be found on a separate area of the website here.  

Key Stage 3 (Years 7, 8 & 9)

The taught curriculum is broad, balanced and ambitious for all students, exposing students to both academic and creative subject areas. 

The Key Stage 3 curriculum includes: 

  • English 
  • Mathematics 
  • Science 
  • Modern Foreign Languages (MFL)- French, German or Spanish 
  • Humanities – History, Geography and Religious Education 
  • Performing Arts – Drama and Music 
  • Creative Arts – Art, Food Technology and Design and Technology 
  • ICT 
  • Physical Education 
  • Personal Development 

For students who have a reading age significantly below their chronological age, bespoke reading interventions take place, which are informed by diagnostic reading assessments.  

Careers Education is incorporated into the Personal Development curriculum, as is the statutory curriculum for RSE (Relationships and Sex Education). 

Key Stage 4 (Years 10 & 11)

Before students progress into Year 10, they confirm their KS4 option choices. Students choose between either Geography or History and select a further two options subjects, including Separate Sciences (in place of GCSE Combined Science) and MFL.  

All students take: 

  • GCSE English Language and GCSE English Literature 
  • GCSE Mathematics 
  • GCSE Combined Science (Separate GCSEs in Biology, Chemistry and Physics are offered as an options choice) 
  • Either GCSE Geography or GCSE History 
  • 2 further options choices (including MFL and Separate Sciences, plus a broad range of additional options choices) 
  • Religious Education 
  • Personal Development, which incorporates Careers Education Information Advice and Guidance and Relationships and Sex Education 
  • Physical Education (students choose from Dance, Sports Studies or Core PE) 

 

Within the options choices, there is an opportunity to choose from a wide variety of GCSE and/or Vocational qualifications from across a broad range of subjects, including: 

  • Art and Design 
  • Business Studies 
  • Computing 
  • Engineering 
  • Hospitality and Catering 
  • Media  
  • MFL (French and/or German) 
  • Music 
  • Performing Arts 
  • Religious Studies 
  • Sport 

 

To look at our Key Stage 4 Options choices in more detail, please follow this link: 

Key Stage 4 Options 

 

Key Stage 5 (Years 12 & 13)

We are proud that approximately half of our students choose to stay with us in the Sixth Form to make the most of the wide range of academic and vocational courses available. Students appreciate the more academic and independent nature of sixth form study, which is balanced with the individual attention and support only a Sixth Form community can provide. 

For further details of the courses on offer, please look at our prospectus here .