Curriculum

Our curriculum aim is simple – we want to create kind hearted, hard–working and well–rounded young people, all with a passion for enquiry and scholarship.
Life as a Harlington student is not just about passing exams.

Our curriculum is centred upon a set of scholarship ideals, which inspire a passion for life – long learning, promotes independent thought and broadens knowledge and skills.
We seek always to provide an outstanding level of educational provision, that meets the needs of every learner, and enables everyone to lead active, happy, healthy and fulfilling lives. To this end, we believe that the curriculum we offer should prepare students for life and the world of work, helping students to develop skills for life, support their personal development and enable them to develop as enquirers and independent learners.

We passionately believe that an ability to learn successfully and achieve well in public examinations promotes equality of opportunity, and helps to transcend barriers of poverty, health and circumstance.

5 Year Curriculum

The curriculum at Harlington is a 5 year curriculum continuum where curriculum design and planning (whole school and individual subjects) together with the assessment strategy supports students throughout their time at Harlington in that it:

Supports the development of students in the skills, knowledge and understanding required for further study in subjects.
Develops depth and rigour in their studies in order to create a scholarly atmosphere and to enable students to become independent learners.

We want students to progress into the wider world with an informed view. This is achieved by having a wide exposure to a range of subjects, experiences, knowledge and skills, all delivered through high quality teaching. Our core offer is an academic curriculum, underpinned by both the national curriculum and the EBACC suite of subjects – but restricting young people to these parameters reduces their educational life chances. To that end, Key Stage 3 and 4 students are immersed in a wide variety of subjects, given opportunities to develop passions and sense of moral purpose and enquiry, and to engage in the arts, a healthy lifestyle and success in navigating the digital age.

We are proud of our diverse community, and this is reflected in the educational experiences we offer. We also believe that young people need guidance when they make choices, and to that end we provide independent advice and guidance at key transitional points in their academic journey.

Key stage 3

In years 7, 8 and 9, we provide a broad and balanced curriculum based on the National Curriculum, whilst building the foundation of skills, knowledge and understanding in order to prepare our students for the next stage of schooling. Students have access to a full and varied range of subjects.

Harlington’s Key Stage 3 curriculum focus is on ‘Stretch and Challenge’ in order to enable our students to access the rigorous and demanding curriculum at KS4. This focus enables students to develop ‘deep learning’ and broaden their knowledge and understanding outside of that required to ‘pass their exams’.

All students study either French and German or French and Spanish in Year 7 and continue to study one of them into years 8 and 9.

All Key Stage 3 students study the following:

English
Science
History
MFL—French, German, Spanish
Physical Education
Food Technology
Music
Mathematics
Geography
Philosophy & Ethics / RE Computing and ICT
Art & Design
Drama
PSCHEE including Citizenship & RSE
Design Technology – Graphics, Electronics, Textiles and Resistant Materials;

Key Stage 4

Students will experience a wide range of subjects in their first two years, and continue to retain a broad and balanced range of subjects through the ‘Harlington Baccalaureate’ which commences in Year 10. The vast majority of students will complete ‘The Harlington Bacc’, as we believe that this range of subjects provides the best possible preparation for students’ future lives as it allows for a range of different pathways at the end of Key Stage 4.

The Harlington Baccalaureate consists of:

English
Maths
Geography or History
Computing or Computer Science
Core PE PSCHEE and Relationships & Sex Education (RSE)
PLUS at least one creative, practical or work-related learning subject

KS4 courses offered and their exam boards

Courses of study for KS4 – 22-23

Key Stage 5

KS5 courses offered and their exam boards

Courses of study for KS5 -22-23

Subject Information

To find out more about our curriculum subjects please click below.

Extra-curricular

Learning does not just take place in a classroom, and our students have a wide range of opportunities for curriculum enhancement outside the taught curriculum. However, their core business of learning and acquiring knowledge and skills is delivered by passionate educators with excellent subject knowledge.

Please visit our dedicated Enrichment page for full details of the extra-curricular activities on offer.

Curriculum documents

Subjects taught to students in the Harlington Baccalaureate can be found by clicking the link below.

Harlington Baccalaureate Year 7 – 11

Our full Curriculum Policy can be found on our Policies page here.

Full details of our curriculum can be found by navigating through the individual subject pages here.