Our Curriculum
At Bishop Justus Church of England School, we believe in offering every child an exciting and broad curriculum experience regardless of their start point or background. We believe in the power of deep knowledge to enable all children to flourish, to live a good life and to make a confident and positive contribution in the communities to which they belong now and in the future.
Each subject area treasures its core knowledge and seeks to deliver this in ways that allow children to discover in real depth the very best of what has been thought and said both in western culture and across the globe and to use this knowledge to question, challenge, collaborate and communicate with skill and mastery. Access to this core knowledge is the right of all children so teachers work hard to ensure that children are able to recall knowledge over time and are able to use it to respond wisely to questioning or argument or to discover new knowledge.
We do this in the confident understanding that embedding knowledge within long term memory will allow our students to focus their working memories more fully on learning, creating and problem solving. We contend that the recent trend for over reliance on technology as a substitute for knowledge is an illusion which does not serve children well, or equip them for the rigours of study and working life.
We understand fully the importance of being word rich and believe that access to the morphology and etymology of vocabulary must not be the sole domain of those deemed most or more able; that alongside wider access to subjects such as Classics or Latin, a deeper knowledge of the word history of subject specific and general vocabulary is the right of all children, and the responsibility of all teachers to teach explicitly.
Our 6th Form curriculum is tailored to meet individual student needs. Most students will follow a 3 A Level route through. Some students will combine A Level study with a BTEC or take a BTEC suite of qualifications. Opportunities exist for students to opt into additional taught elements such EPQ and Maths in context or develop their CV/ leadership skills through Career Ready, mentoring or Duke of Edinburgh.
We aim to provide a curriculum that promotes a sense of confidence, independence, and creativity so access to sport, music and theatre, the British countryside and coast, experiences of historic sites at home and abroad and to higher education providers are all used to broaden the horizons of our students and help them access the shared cultural reference points that are part of 21st century life.
We do all this to empower our students to play a meaningful role in the world as they grow into adulthood.