Our Curriculum Intent

Our Curriculum Intent draws on the following:

Throughout their time at Chelsea Academy each student will flourish, benefitting from a rich academic curriculum and strong pastoral care. Learning will excite, inspire and challenge. Beyond the taught curriculum there will be many opportunities for students to develop their interests and passions. We aspire to acknowledge and embrace vulnerability. All students will develop: resilience, wisdom, hope and skills with which to lead happy, healthy and fulfilling lives.

Our intent is that the Key Stage 3 curriculum will challenge and inspire students throughout the 3 years. We aspire to be primary receptive so that students are further stretched and challenged as they start Year 7. Throughout their 3 years of study, students will develop a firm foundation that enables them to flourish and progress into Key Stage 4. Our Key Stage 3 offer is broad and balanced, inspires a rich love of learning and the accumulation of knowledge. There is an emphasis on developing reading, writing and oracy skills across all subjects. Each subject is delivered in a modular format, based on the national curriculum and carefully sequenced to build on prior learning. Students demonstrate their learning through key summative assessment points; this ensures that their knowledge and understanding is secure and that key knowledge can be transferred to long term memory. Regular formative assessment and incisive feedback, often in the form of low stakes retrieval tests, allows for swift identification of learning gaps or misconceptions and crucially for  knowledge to be embedded. Students have the confidence to be fluent in their use of knowledge, progressing through Key Stage 3 into Key Stage 4.

At Key Stage 4 our intent remains the same but with the additional rigour of ensuring students extend their retrieval and retention skills and can apply knowledge successfully in their GCSE examinations.

Literacy at Chelsea Academy 

Vocabulary Matters

We recognise the impact powerful vocabulary has on student outcomes so as an Academy we have invested in an online reading program called Bedrock Learning. It is specifically designed, by teachers, to expose, develop and extend student experiences of reading so that they learn important academic vocabulary to support their confidence and progress. 

The Bedrock reading curriculum gives them access to a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction texts from a diverse genre of articles. As they progress through the Blocks (dependent on their reading age) they will be given access to thousands of new words. Students in Year 7 – 9 are expected to complete three bedrock sessions (approx. 20 mins each) per week as part of their English and literacy I.L.. They will need to leave 24 hours between each online session as the program is designed to develop memory retention.

Research has shown that there is a direct link between a student’s vocabulary size and their academic achievement. Children with a wider vocabulary make faster progress at school, in further education and beyond. Narrow vocabularies directly affect students’ grades. Helping students to improve and widen their academic vocabularies is essential if standards and outcomes are to improve.

More information on parent/carer login and access to Bedrock Learning can be found here. 

We also have an exceptional Librarian, Miss Allen, and access to hundreds of books for further reading in our incredible library.

Please also take a look at the KS3 recommended reading for pleasure list.

KS3 recommended reading for pleasure list

For up-to-date information, tips and guidance about a wide range of both national and Chelsea Academy-specific themes relating to students’ curriculum, exams and general learning, you can access all of the past ‘Academic Update’ articles from our termly newsletter. 

Curriculum Overviews

Curriculum overviews map key content and skills back from Year 13 to Year 7 to create curriculum overviews. These documents will be uploaded onto the website so that they are permanently available for students and parents.