The Wells Academy Curriculum Intent

The Wells Academy believes that students should have access to an ambitious and inclusive knowledge—rich curriculum. Our curriculum stems from the foundations of our Academy values: integrity, resilience, and ambition. It is designed to:

• Promote lifelong learning: facilitating powerful knowledge and skills that prepare students for life beyond school
• Challenge and stretch: to enthuse students through appropriately demanding learning experiences
• Raise aspirations: fulfilling students’ ambitions and dreams of further education, apprenticeships, and employment routes  
• Embrace multicultural community: fostering our school’s ethos and values, respecting diversity, and harnessing cultural capital  
• Develop character: instilling leadership, organisation, resilience, independence, and communication as interpersonal qualities

At Key Stage 3, students experience a broad range of subjects based on the National Curriculum. We are an inclusive school with a high intake of EAL, PP, and SEND students that is above National averages. We aim to facilitate an accessible and enriching curriculum to help students make informed future study choices.

Subject	Year Group and Number of Weekly Hours per Subject
	Year 7	Year 8	Year 9
English	5	5	5
Maths	5	5	5
Science	3	3	5
French	2	2	2
History	2	2	2
Geography	2	2	2
Religious Education	1	1	1
Physical Education	2	2	2
Music	1	1	-
Drama	1	1	1
Art	1	1	2 (On rotation)
Design and Technology	2	2	2 (On rotation)
Computing	1	1	1
Personal Development	1	1	1
Tutor Time	20 minutes per day	20 minutes per day	20 minutes per day

 

In Year 9, students are supported to make options choices through pathways that suit their needs and abilities. We ensure every individual has the best possible opportunity to achieve their goals.

At Key Stage 4, we offer a range of academic and vocational qualifications. We encourage and support students who wish to study the English Baccalaureate to pursue a more academic route. We are proud of our vocational offer and the positive progress trends, making it a strong curriculum area that enables students to progress onto Post 16 study, training, and/or apprenticeship routes.

Subject	Year Group and Number of Weekly Hours per Subject
	Year 10	Year 11
English	6	5
Maths	6 (Including Statistics)	6 (Including Statistics)
Science	5	6
French	3	3
History	3	3
Geography	3	3
Religious Education	3	-
Physical Education	2	2
Sports Science	3	3
Art and Design	3	3
Hospitality and Catering	3	3
Health and Social	3	3
Enterprise and Marketing	3	3
Information Technology	3	3
Personal Development	1	1
Tutor Time	20 minutes per day	20 minutes per day

 

Curriculum Highlights

Reading: We recognise the impact of Covid on literacy and reading abilities. In response, we facilitate various intervention programs to help students become proficient readers and instill a love of reading. We are proud of our library provision, which hosts a full-time librarian and hundreds of book titles for students and staff to enjoy.

Physical Education: This is a popular subject within our Academy, and we encourage our students to have a physically active and healthy lifestyle. We have protected two weekly lessons for all our students to participate in this important curriculum area.

Personal Development: We recognise the importance of preparing young people for their later life and facilitating lifelong learning opportunities. This is an umbrella curriculum that is taught through 1 weekly lesson to all year groups covering PSHE, Citizenship, RSE, Careers, Safeguarding, and Values Education.

Pastoral Care: We have a daily tutor period during which our curriculum offer enhances students’ personal development, literacy skills, character development, safeguarding knowledge, and career guidance.

CEIAG: Careers education, information, advice, and guidance is the heart and soul of our school. We have A Level 7 trained Careers Leaders who provide bespoke information, advice, and guidance to students. They work closely with teaching staff to ensure careers is embedded within our curriculum, enabling students to have a rich and diverse careers experience to help them make informed choices for their future.

Literacy: We are committed to ensuring our learners experience quality first teaching across the curriculum. We recognise that the explicit teaching of literacy is an integral part of curriculum. Our priority is to make reading, writing, oracy, and explicit teaching of tier 2 and 3 vocabulary an entitlement in all curriculum areas.

We want all our students to have a fulfilling curriculum experience that helps them grow into kind individuals, who are willing to work hard and achieve greatness.