Curriculum Overview

Curriculum Vision

Our core values — Ambition, Respect, and Care — are embedded in every aspect of our curriculum, shaping our teaching and learning environment to ensure that every student feels valued, understood, and supported. These values create a culture where students thrive both personally and academically, fostering a love for learning and a strong sense of belonging within our school community.

Our curriculum is guided by our core values: 

Ambition – We unlock every student’s potential by fostering a growth mindset, encouraging resilience, and instilling a passion for lifelong learning. Through high expectations, challenging lessons, and personalised support, we empower students to set and achieve aspirational goals, preparing them for further education, successful careers, and meaningful contributions to society.

Respect – We promote an inclusive and supportive learning environment where students appreciate the richness of human knowledge, culture, and diverse perspectives. By studying a broad and balanced curriculum—including literature, history, sciences, and the arts—students learn to respect different viewpoints, traditions, and ways of thinking. This respect extends beyond the classroom, fostering positive relationships, teamwork, and a sense of global citizenship.

Care – We prepare students not just for academic success but also for life beyond school, ensuring they develop emotional intelligence, empathy, and a strong sense of responsibility. Our curriculum includes personal development programs, community engagement opportunities, and PSHE lessons that encourage students to care for themselves, others, and the world around them. We nurture well-being, kindness, and resilience, supporting students to become compassionate individuals who make a positive difference in their communities.

These core values underpin everything we do at The Avon Valley School, shaping our curriculum, teaching strategies, and school ethos. Through engaging lessons, meaningful experiences, and a supportive community, we empower students to embrace opportunities, overcome obstacles, and experience the joy of learning. By embedding Ambition, Respect, and Care into our daily practices, we ensure that every student leaves us equipped not only with academic excellence but also with the skills, character, and confidence to succeed in life.

Curriculum Principles

Within our curriculum we aim to balance the four broad philosophies of what education is for:

• To develop the potential of the child (personal empowerment)

• To pass on “the best which has been thought and said” (cultural transmission)

• To prepare young people for life and work (preparation for work)

• To build communities and overcome social disadvantage (preparation for citizenship)
  
  

Our seven whole school principles of curriculum are that the curriculum must be: 

• Balanced – Promotes intellectual, moral, spiritual, aesthetic, creative, emotional, and physical development.

• Rigorous – Seeks to develop intra-disciplinary habits of mind; powerful ways of thinking that are developed through sustained engagement with the discipline.

• Coherent – Makes explicit connections and links between the different subjects and experiences.

• Vertically Integrated– Focuses on progression by carefully sequencing knowledge; provides clarity about what ‘getting better’ at the subject means.

• Appropriate – Matches the level of challenge to a pupil’s current level of maturity and knowledge.

• Focused – Seeks to keep the curriculum manageable by teaching the most important knowledge; identifies the big ideas or key concepts within a subject.

• Relevant – Seeks to connect the valued outcomes of a curriculum to the pupils being taught it; provides opportunities for pupils to make informed choices.

How We Organise Our Curriculum  

Years 7 and 8

In Years 7 and 8, students study a broad and balanced range of subjects within the Faculties of Technology, Art, Performing Arts and Computing as well as the traditional subjects of Maths, English, Science, PE, Humanities and Modern Foreign Languages.  The school has maintained its specialism in Performing Arts and discrete lessons in Dance, Drama and Music are firmly embedded within the curriculum. Our curriculum is designed to challenge students of all abilities to achieve their academic potential and from Year 8, students with an aptitude for Modern Foreign Languages study either German or Spanish, alongside French. All subjects have a curriculum plan which is appropriately sequenced ensuring gains in students' knowledge and understanding of discrete subject disciplines as they progress through the school. Click below for our curriculum outlines.

Year 7 Curriculum Outlines

Year 8 Curriculum Outlines

Year 9

In Year 9 students continue to follow a broad curriculum. All students study the core subjects of Maths, English, Science, PE, and PSHE/RE. They also follow the 'Learning for Life' curriculum which includes: History, Geography, DT and IT, alongside either the Arts Award at Bronze Level, or the Adventure Youth Service Challenge Award. In Year 9, students also study content that will help to prepare them for their chosen GCSE subjects. This curriculum structure enables students to develop secure background knowledge in their chosen subjects, thus optimising the opportunity for academic success at the end of Year 11, whilst ensuring that students also have the benefit of covering the full KS3 National Curriculum.

National curriculum content is carefully tracked to ensure that pupils have covered all areas of non-statutory KS4 subjects by the end of Year 9. Click here for an informational video on Learning for Life. Click below for our Year 9 Curriculum Outlines.

Year 9 Curriculum Outlines

Years 10 and 11

In Years 10 and 11, all students continue to study the core offer and their four chosen option subjects which, collectively, provide a varied and challenging curriculum designed to meet the interests and academic ability of all students. Students are offered a mixture of practical and academic subjects from all areas of the curriculum. This model ensures that students have access to a wide range of progression routes for the next step of their education, and ensures equity of delivery, with all pupils having equal access to subjects.

Enrichment

Alongside the traditional curriculum, the school plans many opportunities to extend the experiences and learning of students. The school launched the ‘Cultural Capital Passport’ for Years 7-9 in September 2020, (relaunched September 2021) promoting 40 activities to broaden the learning experience of students before they leave AVS. There are a wide range of extra-curricular opportunities, with a mix of academic and physical activities;  day visits to museums, universities, sporting activities, residential trips and conferences, all of which add memorable experiences to support student self-development.

The school continues to organise Splash days - complete days where the timetable is collapsed and students engage in a range of learning opportunities: team work; PSHE focus days; revision conferences; study skills days; leadership workshops and a variety of other activities. In June 2022 students performed the musical 'Matilda' to much acclaim.

Student participation is tracked for all organised opportunities, to ensure all groups of students are accessing the full range of activities available.