Canons is a learning community which prioritises powerful knowledge highly.  Our teachers are subject specialists, drawing upon trusted evidence in our curriculum, our teaching and our assessment practices.  As a result of excellent and effective teaching for all, students cumulatively know more, can do more and remember more as they progress as learners across the curriculum in each subject.  

At Canons, students are challenged to enlarge their intellectual capacity, developing criticality and thoughtfulness in working with the big ideas within specialist subjects, and in working with and learning from other people.  As a result, our students enter adult life as engaged and enterprising citizens, empowered to effect positive change in the world. 

Our aim is to give all our students the knowledge they need to progress within and beyond school, and the cultural capital to prepare them to succeed in life. We teach our students to become the specialists of the future: mathematicians, scientists, historians, engineers, artists, lawyers and architects.  This is why we ensure that all students have equal access to powerful knowledge.

To achieve this for all students, we:

• Provide a broad, balanced and challenging curriculum for all students in all key stages.
• Follow a three-year programme in Key Stage 3 where all students study the full range of national curriculum subjects.
• Provide a two-year examination programme in Key Stage 4 where students choose from a wide range of subjects including those that form the English Baccalaureate.
• Ensure access to a rich and varied Key Stage 5 curriculum offer so that the vast majority of our sixth formers progress to higher education and the careers of their dreams.

In order to ensure that each student is challenged and supported effectively and able to transition successfully to the next stage of education, training or employment, we:

• Have increased the learning time for all students by over three hours a week.
• Enact a common teaching and learning policy across all subjects and ages.
• Share feedback with families on student learning in all subjects four times a year.
• Implement intervention programmes to ensure that students are challenged and supported to catch up if they have learning and knowledge gaps.

Ours is an inclusive community of excellence for minds and the curriculum at Canons is designed so that every student is supported and challenged to develop strong knowledge, appropriate skills and deep understanding in all subjects.