Curriculum

As a Dixons academy, our curriculum is aligned to a common set of trust-wide principles which are underpinned by our mission to challenge educational and social disadvantage in the North. We believe all students are entitled to an ambitious, knowledge-rich curriculum which will open doors and maximise life chances.

We ensure our curriculum is broad and ambitious, and addresses social disadvantage by equipping students, particularly disadvantaged students and pupils with SEND, with the powerful knowledge, skills and cultural capital that they need to succeed in life.

At Dixons Trinity, we build a partnership between parents, students, and teachers that puts learning first. We help our students to value learning by activating them as owners of their own learning.

The curriculum is planned and intelligently sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and towards its clearly defined end points. Curriculum mapping ensures sufficient coverage across the subject over time and that it has sufficient depth and coverage of knowledge. The curriculum reflects the school’s local context by addressing typical gaps in pupils’ knowledge and skills. We ensure that interventions are appropriately delivered to enhance pupils’ capacity to access the full curriculum.

Reading and mathematical fluency are prioritised to allow pupils to access the full curriculum offer with a greater allocation of curriculum time in English and mathematics, as well as, with our literacy strategies and maths academic Morning Meetings. Our curriculum is designed to facilitate reading stretch and reading rescue to ensure that students can climb their mountain.

Our curriculum in Year 9, Year 10 and Year 11 is broad and balanced with a strong core in the EBacc (English, mathematics, science, one language and history / geography) and a range of high value subject options such as art, 3D design, textiles, photography, music and PE.

Assessment is designed to shape future learning and is not excessive or onerous. Assessments check students' understanding in order to inform teaching, and to help students embed and use knowledge fluently and develop their understanding, and not simply memorise disconnected facts. We firmly believe that assessment is the bridge between teaching and learning. Therefore, every lesson at Dixons Trinity will show evidence of the following core features:

1. Intelligent sequencing
    
2. Highly tailored learning activities
    
3. Effective formative assessment

These are compulsory features of all of our lessons that shape how students learn and how teachers teach.

Co-Curricular is a distinctive feature of Dixons Trinity to ensure a breadth to our curriculum throughout a student's five year journey with us, equally offering students the opportunity to explore mediums they would not otherwise study. Students will understand how the skills and qualities attained through taking part in a variety of different electives can aid them in becoming happy, healthy, upskilled and successful in their careers and everyday lives. 

Please note that parents have a right to withdraw their child from part or all of Religious Education (RE) and part of or all of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE/RSHE), please contact the academy via email should you wish to discuss this or if you wish to find out more information about the curriculum for any of our subjects.

Please see the links to key documentation given below for further information about the curriculum.