Topic outline

  • Yardleys Curriculum

    • “We aim to provide students with a curriculum that educates the whole child, creating responsible and respectful citizens. Through the development of substantive and disciplinary knowledge, students are given the tools that allow them to achieve excellence and be ready for life.”


      At Yardleys we are committed to providing a curriculum for the students that fosters learning, empowers all students and enriches their lives providing the much-needed cultural capital. We believe our coherent curriculum is influential in improving life chances including social mobility, employment, health and wellbeing.

      Yardleys School Charter sits at the heart of the school curriculum and everything we do at the school.


    • The Yardleys School Charter


      Providing a secure education for the students at the school is built on a number of key principles:

      1. An ambitious curriculum across the school and within subjects

      2. Continual development and enhancement of whole school and subject pedagogy

      3. Dedicated time allocated to give all students a well-rounded Personal Development Curriculum

      4. A committed approach to developing strong literacy skills in all of the students


    • Ambitious Curriculum

      Yardleys Big 5

      The school’s ambitious curriculum, built on the development of substantive and disciplinary knowledge, is designed to challenge all students as, like Young, we believe that all students have the right to acquire powerful knowledge during their schooling.  

      Our curriculum and pedagogy aims to support students with memory recall in order to consolidate learning and enable them to make more progress through knowing more and remembering more. Yardleys Big 5 Teaching and Learning Priorities are fundamental in the overall approach that the school has to teaching and Learning.


    • Yardleys Learning Cycle

      Pedagogical Enhancement

      Providing students at the school with consistently high-quality lessons requires commitment, with dedicated time given to subjects across the school through weekly 90min subject pedagogy time. This along with the Deliberate Practice CPD model allows a ‘secure focus on pedagogical and subject knowledge’ (Cruddas,L. 2016). 

      We are lucky at the school to have Leaders of Pedagogy and Pedagogy Ambassadors helping improve teaching and learning across the school on the continued aim for teachers to improve “not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better” D Wiliam.

      We place a high emphasis on learning and recognise that helping students know more and remember more requires a change in long term memory. Yardleys Learning Cycle highlights the key instructional principles for teachers when planning learning opportunities for students.


    • Yardleys Personal Development Curriculum

      Here at Yardleys School the Personal Development Curriculum is designed to ensure we educate the ‘whole child’. Our robust Personal Development Curriculum enables pupils to succeed in all aspects of their future and prepare them for life in ways the students may currently be unable to recognise. The curriculum is designed to develop an understanding of the ​ever-changing world in which we live, develop the skills necessary to take an active role in their community and manage their life effectively in the future.

      The Personal Development Curriculum is an integral part of the school program and is implemented throughout Yardleys School via:

      ·         Weekly themed assemblies

      ·         Weekly Personal Development sessions delivered by form tutors

      ·         Personal Development sessions delivered by external agencies (including the West Midlands Police and Loudmouth Theatre)

      ·         Weekly Enrichment sessions

      ·         Participation in school clubs

      ·         Undertaking student leadership roles

      ·         Our active CEIAG program

      The Yardleys Personal Development Curriculum has been structured and sequenced using a thematic spiral approach with age-appropriate content throughout. The content has been selected using the statutory SRE guidance as the foundation, with students and teachers collaborating on the order of progression. Additional curriculum content has also been selected to take into account our local context and ensure the content is relevant and responsive to the ever-changing world around us. 


    • Literacy

      We at Yardleys know that good literacy is the key to unlocking the school curriculum and opportunities beyond school. Our goal is to improve the reading skills of all students, and as a result students in Year 7-10 follow the Guided Reading curriculum. Guided Reading not only improves students’ reading skills, but also promotes a love of reading and widens their knowledge of the world. 

      The Guided Reading curriculum is implemented via four twenty-five minute sessions a week. In these sessions, teachers read a challenging yet age appropriate texts with students, and also check their understanding of the novel via carefully planned questions. Key vocabulary is presented to students are the start of each session so that they can access the text, and broaden their vocabulary. The books are selected to expose students to a range of genres from a variety of cultures and times, and therefore educate them about the lives and experiences of others.