The Meridian Curriculum
Vision
‘To become embedded as a Centre of Excellence for our community where students are encouraged to present the best version of themselves. Students are challenged, they learn and achieve within a culture of resilience, ambition and respect. We are an inclusive school and aim to provide students with a personalised provision to enhance learning so that all students thrive.’
Curriculum Intent
Our programme for education at Meridian High School is a knowledge-based curriculum which incorporates essential skills applicable to the subject, empowering students to develop an understanding and appreciation of the subjects they study.
Our curriculum is therefore carefully designed by our subject specialists within the school and with the support of our Multi Academy Trust to challenge our students, and to support our students to meet and exceed their target grades so all students have the opportunity for a better future.
The intentions of our curriculum are as follows:
- Students are challenged to think deeply, recall and skilfully apply information and supported to ensure they produce work of the highest standard.
- Students learn through the acquisition of knowledge through carefully sequenced learning journeys with opportunities to revisit and build on prior learning to support conceptual understanding.
- Students achieve the best possible outcomes by studying a carefully considered and, in some cases, personalised educational programme which is ambitious and meets the individual student's needs.
- We encourage students to apply themselves in every lesson and by developing a clear understanding of why achievement matters to their future goals and aspirations
MHS Curriculum Booklet 2026-2027.pdf
The subjects on offer have been carefully selected taking into account:
1. The national curriculum requirements
2. The local context of our students and our high ambitions for them
At Meridian High School, we are an inclusive school where all learners access a high quality, personalised provision so that they are challenged, can learn and can achieve. We believe that education is more than just academic outcomes.
All our students who need it have access to an alternative education through an alternative curriculum to better prepare them for life beyond MHS. Students that access interventions offered by our Pinnacle or Summit provisions will have a flexible and personalised timetable which could include some of the interventions listed in the table below.
The table shows the hours spent on each subject in a typical week for KS3 students, along with the interventions offered as an alternative to some subjects. Some students will also get additional Lexia lessons, Phonics sessions and Speech and Language Support.
| Subject | Hours | Intervention |
|---|---|---|
| English | 4 | Lexia, Dyslexia Gold (and phonics) |
| Maths | 4 | |
| Science | 3 | |
| History | 2 | Precision Teaching |
| Geography | 2 | Precision Teaching |
| Worldviews | 2 | |
| Spanish | 1 | Forest School |
| PSHE | 1 | |
| Art and Design | 1 | Therapies |
| Drama | 1 | Handwriting |
| Business Technology | 1 | Numeracy |
| Health and Nutrition | 1 | Life Skills |
| PE | 1 | SALT, SEMH, Reading |
| Personal Development | 1 | SEMH |
In Year 9, students have informed discussions around their KS4 provision and GCSE Pathway.
We carefully consider every individual student's need, assessment data and career aspiration, and allocate each student one of three following KS4 Pathways:
Core Curriculum:
English Language, English Literature, Maths, Statistics, Science, PSHE, and PE.
1) Route to Success A : Students will study the core curriculum in addition to: Triple Science One of: History, Geography or Religious Studies One of : Art, Drama or Spanish One of: Citizenship, Health & Social Care, BTEC Sport, Business, Hospitality and Catering
2) Route to Success B: Students will study our core curriculum in addition to: Combined Science One of: History, Geography or Religious Studies One of : Art, Drama or Spanish One of: Citizenship, Health & Social Care, BTEC Sport, Business, Hospitality and Catering
3) Route to Success C: Functional Skills Maths and Step Up English, Entry Level Science and Hair and Beauty
| Subject | Year 10 | Year 11 |
|---|---|---|
| English (Language and Literature) | 5 | 5 |
| Maths and Statistics | 5 | 5 |
| Combined Science | 5 | 4 |
| Triple Science | 6 | 6 |
| PSHE | 1 | 1 |
| Core PE | 1 | 1 |
| History, Geography, Religious Studies | 3 | 3 (Not RS) |
| Art, Drama, Spanish | 2 | 2 |
| BTEC Sport, Hospitality and Catering, Health and Social Care, Citizenship, Business | 2 | 2 |
Curriculum Implementation
Our curriculum is brought to life through a set of core teaching and learning fundamentals designed to ensure every student thrives in the classroom. These include:
Modelling and Scaffolding
We show students what success looks like by explicitly modelling processes and thinking. Scaffolding breaks learning into manageable steps, enabling all learners to build confidence and independence over time.
Literacy and Oracy
Strong literacy and oracy skills underpin academic success across every subject. We prioritise vocabulary development, reading comprehension, and oracy to help students articulate their understanding and engage critically with ideas.
Questioning and Checking for Understanding
Effective questioning is central to our teaching practice. It allows teachers to check understanding, challenge students and adjust teaching to ensure all students are supported.
Addressing Misconceptions
We actively seek out and address misunderstandings to secure deep and lasting learning. By tackling misconceptions early, we help students strengthen their knowledge and provide clea foundations on which to build.
Challenge for All
We believe in the potential of every student. Lessons are designed to enable all students to be ambitious thinking and challenge learners at every level, fostering resilience, ambition and a love of learning.
Teaching and learning models
At Meridian High School, our approach to teaching and learning is shaped by research into how pupils learn and by a clear understanding of the needs of our school community.
We use three research-informed teaching models, drawing on guidance from the Education Endowment Foundation and the work of educational researchers including Sweller, Quigley, Alexander, Agarwal and Roediger. The models give staff a shared language and a consistent set of classroom strategies, while allowing teachers to adapt their teaching to meet the needs of individual pupils.
All three models include the core features of effective teaching: explicit instruction, high-quality modelling, guided practice, retrieval practice, checking for understanding and carefully supporting pupils towards greater independence.
Model 1 supports pupils working at Bands 7-9. It places greater emphasis on complexity and depth, peer explanation, oracy and structured autonomy.
Model 2 supports pupils working at Bands 4-6. Pupils are taught ambitious content, with carefully planned scaffolding that helps them understand challenging ideas and prepares them to work independently.
Model 3 supports pupils working at Bands 1-3. Learning is broken into smaller, manageable steps, with explicit modelling, frequent checks for understanding and repeated I Do, We Do, You Do cycles.
We work alongside Trust Leaders and our colleagues in our Outstanding Schools to ensure the Meridian Curriculum is broad, rich and carefully designed to support our students so that they are well placed to be successful in the future.
EBACC
We understand the need to develop our student's understanding of the world in which they live and fully support the cultural appreciation offered by an extensive EBACC programme. Our curriculum model means that all students (with some exceptions) study Spanish from Year 7 -Year 11. Historical and projected EBACC figures can be seen in the table below:
|
Year |
2018/19 |
2019/20 |
2020/21 |
2021/22 |
2022/23 |
2023/24 |
2024/25 |
2025/26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Percentage |
17% |
20% |
17% |
22% |
59% |
67% |
69% |
28% |
Subject Allocation
The subjects on offer have been carefully selected taking into account:
- The national curriculum requirements
- The local context of our students and our high ambitions for them
The table below shows the hours spent on each subject in a typical week.
| Curriuclum information | Hours | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subject/Year group | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| English | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| Maths | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Science | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| History | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Geography | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Spanish | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| PSHE | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Worldviews/Religious studies | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| Business Studies | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Travel and Tourism | 2 | ||||
| Health and Nutrition | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Health and Social Care | 2 | 2 | |||
| PE/ BTEC Sport | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Drama | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Art | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Triple Science | 2 | 2 | |||
| Citizenship | 2 | 2 | |||
| Functional Skills Maths | 2 | 2 | |||
| Step Up English | 2 | 2 | |||
| Forest School | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
Personalised provision
At Meridian High School, our ambition is to ensure all students are fully supported and receive a personalised experience whilst they are with us. This means seeing the individuals, meeting their needs and enhancing their learning in the way best suited to them in order for them to achieve.
Pinnacle and Summit Offer
At Meridian High School, we believe that every student deserves an education that inspires, empowers, and enables them to thrive. Our alternative curriculum is a reflection of this belief: thoughtfully designed, deeply personalised, and firmly rooted in our commitment to inclusion and equity.
We recognise that some learners face unique challenges that require more tailored support. That’s why our alternative curriculum offers a nurturing and flexible environment that responds to individual needs, whether they relate to literacy and language development, neurological differences or social, emotional and mental health (SEMH).
Through a blend of high-quality teaching, therapeutic strategies, and targeted intervention, we equip our students with the skills, confidence, and resilience they need to succeed, both within school and beyond it. Our provision is not a step back, but a carefully constructed pathway forward: one that is meaningful, appropriate and ambitious for the individual student.
We stand by the belief that inclusion is not about fitting students into a system, it is about shaping a system that fits all students. Through our alternative curriculum, we make that vision a reality and allow all students the opportunity to be successful.
