The Meridian Curriculum
Vision
‘To become embedded as a Centre of Excellence for our community where students are encouraged to present the best version of themselves. Students are challenged, they learn and achieve within a culture of resilience, ambition and respect. We are an inclusive school and aim to provide students with a personalised provision to enhance learning so that all students thrive.’
Curriculum Intent
Our programme for education at Meridian High School is a knowledge-based curriculum which incorporates essential skills applicable to the subject, empowering students to develop an understanding and appreciation of the subjects they study. Our curriculum is therefore carefully designed by our subject specialists within the school and with the support of our Multi Academy Trust to challenge our students, and to enable our students to meet and exceed their target grades so all students have the opportunity for a better future.
The intentions of our curriculum are as follows:
- Students are challenged to think deeply, recall and skilfully apply information and supported to ensure they produce work of the highest standard.
- Students learn through the acquisition of knowledge through carefully sequenced learning journeys with opportunities to revisit and build on prior learning to support conceptual understanding.
- Students achieve the best possible outcomes by studying a carefully considered and, in some cases, personalised educational programme which is ambitious and meets the individual student's needs. We encourage students to apply themselves in every lesson and by developing a clear understanding of why achievement matters to their future goals and aspirations.
We are proud to offer a broad and rich curriculum designed specifically with our students’ needs at the heart of it. Our compulsory core curriculum is EBACC centric and all KS3 students, with the exception of some students who received a personalised provision, study English Language, English Literature, Maths, Science, Spanish, History, Geography, World Views, PSHE, Art & Design, Drama, Business & ICT, Health & Nutrition, and PE. We understand the need to develop our student's understanding of the world in which they live and fully support the cultural appreciation offered by an extensive EBACC programme. At the end of Year 9 students opt to continue with History or Geography, specialise in one aspect of our World Views Curriculum (RE, Psychology, Sociology), choose their creative pathway in Art or Drama and select a vocational pathway via BTEC Sport, Business Studies or Hospitality & Catering to study in KS4.
Curriculum Implementation
Our curriculum aims are to develop strong academic outcomes through evidence based effective Teaching Strategies such as:
- Modelling: Our teachers use the "I do, we do, you do" approach to modelling. This is often supported by the use of a visualiser. This enables the students to see the experts' thinking in the "I do" phase, collaboration with the teacher in the "we do" phase, which then prepares the students to develop independence in the "you do" phase.
- Questioning: Our teachers carefully plan and target their questions to students. Teachers use a range of question types to check students' understanding and challenge their thinking.
- Scaffolding: It is important that all students have access to the same content and high expectations, to ensure that this happens we further support our students using scaffolding strategies. Task boards, dual coding, structure strips and more time using the visualiser in the "we do" phase are just some of the strategies that we are using to support our students.
- Retrieval and remembering: Our teachers have designed subject specific knowledge organisers which are available to students in their google classrooms. This supports PREP, which consists of knowledge quizzes set through google classroom and other online learning platforms. Low stakes quizzing supports memory retention and confidence. Teachers also plan a '5 a day' quiz at the start of every lesson that links to prior learning and retrieval of key knowledge that supports the lesson being delivered. This is further supported through teacher marking focusing on key terminology and a recall activity for the students to complete.
- Challenge: Our curriculum is ambitious and teachers aim to teach to the top and through this incorporate higher order questioning to challenge thinking and create more sustained opportunities to work independently.
- Oracy: Our teachers are starting to embed oracy by encouraging our students to speak using standard English in full sentences, actively listening and developing critical thinking skills. This is supported through Direct Vocabulary Instruction (DVI) to introduce key terminology that can be used to communicate ideas.
- Feedback: Our principle is feedback to feed forward. Our teachers use formative assessment strategies through our "5 a day", verbal feedback and questioning which provides an assessment of learning during the lesson. Our summative assessment strategies include end of topic assessments and termly assessments where students will gain feedback.
We work alongside Trust Leaders and our colleagues in our Outstanding Schools to ensure the Meridian Curriculum is broad, rich and carefully designed to support our students so that they are well placed to be successful in the future.
EBACC
We understand the need to develop our student's understanding of the world in which they live and fully support the cultural appreciation offered by an extensive EBACC programme. Our curriculum model means that all students (with some exceptions) study Spanish from Spanish from Year 7 – Year 11.
Historical and projected EBACC figures can be seen in the table below:
|
Year |
2018/19 |
2019/20 |
2020/21 |
2021/22 |
2022/23 |
2023/24 |
2024/25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Percentage |
17% |
20% |
17% |
22% |
59% |
67% |
79% |
Subject Allocation
The subjects on offer have been carefully selected taking into account:
- The national curriculum requirements
- The local context of our students and our high ambitions for them
The table below shows the hours spent on each subject in a typical week.
|
Subject |
Year 7 |
Year 8 |
Year 9 |
Options |
Year 10 |
Year 11 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
English Language and Literature |
4 |
4 |
4 |
Core Curriculum |
4 |
4 |
|
Maths |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
|
|
Science |
3 |
3 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
|
|
Spanish |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
|
PE |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
PSHE |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
Music |
1 |
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
History |
2 |
2 |
2 |
Humanities Pathway |
3 |
3 |
|
Geography |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|||
|
Art & Design |
1 |
1 |
1 |
Creative Pathway |
2 |
2 |
|
Drama |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|||
|
World Views |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
|
|
RE |
|
World Views Pathway |
2 |
2 |
||
|
Sociology |
||||||
|
Psychology |
||||||
|
Business & ICT |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
||
|
Health & Nutrition |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|||
|
Hospitality & Catering |
|
Vocational Pathway |
2 |
2 |
||
|
Business Studies |
||||||
|
BTEC Sport |
||||||
Personalised provision
At Meridian High School, our ambition is to ensure all students are fully supported and receive a personalised experience whilst they are with us. This means seeing the individuals, meeting their needs and enhancing their learning in the way best suited to them in order for them to achieve.
TEAMS Approach
When students arrive in Year 7, all students sit CAT4 tests and NQRT tests as our strategic baseline assessment. CAT4 testing indicates a student’s verbal, non-verbal, spatial and quantitative scores where the national average is a score of 100 whilst NGRT assesses a student’s ability to read at speed and read to understand (comprehension) against a standardised age score. Any student with a reading age below 11 years has access to Lexia as our programme for closing the reading gap. Any student with a reading age of 7 or below is further assessed by our SALT with access to dyslexia gold. Once profiles have been completed for all students, students are carefully placed into different tutor groups (TEAMS) where they are able to access appropriate levels of support from additional adults or the alternative curriculum.
M and S Classes
Within TEAMS, the M and S classes are much smaller in size to allow students to access a personalised provision as part of our Pinnacle and Summit offers. Students within these two classes tend to have a reading age much lower than their actual age and so teachers are able to carefully plan their lessons to best support these students. These classes will also have access to additional supporting adults where possible.
Pinnacle and Summit Offer
At Meridian High School we have carefully designed an alternative curriculum to ensure that students have a personalised provision that will meet their needs in the most effective way. The alternative curriculum supports students for literacy and language, neurological differences and social, emotional, mental health. As an inclusive school, we believe that all students of all abilities have the right to an education that is meaningful, appropriate and equivalent to that of their peers. Within the Pinnacle and Summit, students are able to access the following personalised interventions under each of the following categories:
Pinnacle
- Alternative Curriculum : Home Cooking, Finance, Forest School and Health & Social Care.
- Language & Literacy : Lexia, Dyslexia Gold, SALT and handwriting
- Neurological Differences : ASDAN and Lego Therapy
Summit
- SEMH workshops : Self-Esteem, Conflict Resolution, Social Skills, Emotional Literacy, Breaking Free and Ready to Learn
