Our mission statement unifies our school community with a simple message; ‘To Know, Love and Serve God’. We believe that every child has the potential, and god given right to be the best individual version of themselves. Therefore, our curriculum is distinctive as it is rooted in the belief that our pupils were created in the image of God. It is our aim to support our pupils to ‘be the change that they wish to see in the world’; we want our pupils to live happy and fruitful lives whilst also being able to improve the world around them.

The moral and spiritual development of our pupils is equally as important as their intellectual skills. Our Lady’s pupils will grow up to be resilient, empathetic and determined individuals who live out the Gospel values through their words and actions. 

To help our young people develop we believe it is important for them to explore their talents and enable them to experience success and fulfil their potential. To this end we offer a broad and balanced curriculum, with a wide range of enriching subjects, that does not sideline the importance of any subject disciplines. In addition to understanding the importance of an academic curriculum we fully value the transformative power of the arts.

Whilst we do not shy away from the reality that examination success is important for a pupils’ life chances and being a gateway to future learning and intellectual growth, we truly believe that a rounded education includes much more than that. Consequently, we offer a rich and varied enrichment programme, that includes a wide range of regular clubs and many trips that develop pupils’ curriculum understanding and literally broaden their horizons. Our enrichment programme will support pupils in having an intrinsic motivation to learn and to understand that learning is multifaceted and ultimately something that brings joy to an individual’s life.

You can find the link to google enrichment website here. 

https://sites.google.com/olsc.manchester.sch.uk/studentlinks/enrichment

We recognize that our young people have differing needs, gifts and talents and we aim to meet these through a variety of curriculum support measures, for example focused reading intervention and through our extensive pastoral support.

We do not marginalise any subjects, and offer a truly broad and balanced curriculum that embodies the principle of the curriculum being ‘the best that has been thought and said’. We want all of our young people to truly believe that they are scholars who can shape their world through their knowledge, passion and empathy for others. Consequently, a curriculum designed around these principles will enable our young people to:

• Aspire to be the best that they can be, both intellectually, socially and morally.

• Achieve both the knowledge and qualifications which will support them in living a happy and purposeful adult life.

• Encounter the living God who is Jesus Christ revealing his transforming love and truth.

• To be resilient individuals who can respond to difficulty well and have strong and adaptable social skills which will empower them to have positive relationships.

Key Stage 3 (Years 7, 8 and 9)

We believe that learning is a never ending journey, that begins before formal education commences and that each stage should build on the last. To that end we ensure that our key stage 3 curriculum does not unnecessarily duplicate what has been explored in primary school. To achieve this we have regular curriculum discussions with our partner primary schools to ensure that we are meeting our young peoples’ learning needs.Key stage 3 is not simply a preparation for key stage and GCSE outcomes; we believe that is a reductive view that does not celebrate the importance the key stage 3 curriculum in terms of the power of knowledge.

All students follow a core curriculum and where appropriate receive additional literacy and numeracy intervention to ensure that they have the skills to develop and demonstrate their knowledge across all subject areas. The majority of subjects are taught in mixed attainment classes, with Maths taught in banded classes and Science taught in attainment sets in Years 8 and 9.

Our Offer

Our key stage 3 is years 7,8, 9 where the full national curriculum and beyond is covered. All students have the following lessons, for the following number of hours across the two week timetable.

Key Stage 4

Year 9 is a pivotal  year as students select their GCSE option choices after a programme of guidance. All students have an interview with a member of the senior leadership team to discuss their future plans and possible career choices, fundamentally to ensure that the pupils are selecting the appropriate subjects for their interest and passions.

We do not use a pathways approach, rather our individualised guidance ensures that all students select an options suite of subjects that are challenging and will support them in the next stage of their educational journey. We advocate that having a range of subjects, such as a humanities subject and a language, will be beneficial for both a students’ intellectual development and their life chances.

Students in key stage 4 also receive independent careers guidance and the classes are set according to attainment  in most core subjects, option subjects are mixed attainment.

The vast majority of students study the following subjects:

Students can select three subjects from the following foundation subjects:

If you have any questions regarding the curriculum please contact Ms Ryan.