Our Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed to represent who we are and what we stand for - COPA

C - Community

Our curriculum supports our vision to be a true community school that enables all students to be confident, compassionate and articulate individuals with the skills to support them throughout their lives. We are an ethnically diverse school which gives us a brilliant identity. We embrace all members of our community and celebrate diversity. Diversity is celebrated and supported to ensure each pupil understands what it is to be part of an inclusive and global community.

We recognise that education is more than just academic success and aim to develop the whole person, we offer a wide range of Enrichment opportunities which are open to all. Student leadership is promoted through the following pathways:

- Sports Leaders Programme
- Student Prefects
- Student SLT
- Humanutopia Heroes

We have a period 7 programme which offers over 30 enrichment activities for students in Years 7 to 10, and a targeted intervention programme for students in Year 11.

O - Opportunities

We are a truly inclusive school that provides a broad and balanced curriculum. Our academic curriculum is designed to be challenging and ambitious, providing opportunities for questioning, curiosity and creativity.

We believe in breadth within our curriculum and offer a full range of subjects at both KS3 and 4. With a high proportion of disadvantaged student in the PE1 postcodes, our curriculum must support an aspirational outlook on future opportunities for our students. In order to do this, our curriculum supports the development of new schema and experiences for our students. We use a variety of trips and external visitors such as university visits, local theatrical productions companies, foreign visits and our Summer Activity Day are all examples of how we do this at CoPA.

All students have access to high quality careers education from year 7. This includes assemblies led by guest speakers from local and national industries, student interviews and work experience placements.

P - Preparation

We prepare our students well for future education and employment. The core skills of literacy and numeracy run throughout the curriculum.

Our Tutorial Programme is split between PSHE and Tutor-Led Reading. The PSHE Programme is follows statutory guidance and supports our students to make positive decisions around relationships, mental health, illegal substances and active healthy lifestyles. The Reading Programme targets the demographic need of our community by exposing students to new cultures, people and ideas. The Tutor assumes the role of the ‘expert reader’ in the room and reads aloud to tutees. They model fluent, passionate reading.

A - Academic Success

We deliver Quality First Teaching, bespoke intervention and have refined our exam strategy to drive academic success.

Our curriculum aims to build students’ resilience through challenge and ambition. The curriculum is coherent and well sequenced, emphasising:

- Powerful knowledge – what matters the most
- Cultural Capital – making it real.

Through our REACH for excellence values, Students are encouraged to persevere with tasks and think deeply as the route is not always easy.

Our curriculum plans are live documents and therefore continue to evolve and are updated regularly.