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Secondary Curriculum
DreamBox Reading Plus
DreamBox Reading Plus by Discovery Education is an evidence-based, online programme that accelerates learning by providing personalised instruction and intervention for students. It personalises instruction based on an in-product assessment, and produces data and actionable reports to determine pupils' reading proficiency and ensure they are on the best learning path to success. It provides teachers with a clear, comprehensive picture of their pupils’ skills and abilities across silent reading fluency, comprehension, vocabulary and motivation.
Schools assess students at the start of the academic year to create a reading benchmark, and then assess at two further benchmark points in the middle and at the end of the year. Curriculum time is allocated for reading plus to develop reading skills. Data is used to inform intervention and curriculum planning.
SPARX Learning
Sparx Maths
Our aim is to provide personalised, challenging and attainable homework that every child can complete each week. Sparx Maths will be set on a Wednesday and handed in the following Wednesday. The homework length will be 40 minutes plus 5 minutes of times tables practice.
Sparx Maths delivers weekly personalised homework that is challenging yet achievable, based on recent learning as well as some revision of prior topics. Students complete their homework online and receive immediate feedback. Each question comes with a support video to help them work independently.
Sparx Science
Our aim is to provide personalised, challenging and attainable homework that every child can complete each week.
Sparx Science will be set on a Wednesday and handed in the following Wednesday. The homework length will be 40 minutes per week.
Sparx Science helps students retain and recall scientific knowledge while encouraging deep thinking. Like Sparx Maths, most homework is based on recent lessons, with some review questions to reinforce earlier topics. The platform provides helpful support to guide students through challenging content or unfamiliar scientific ideas.
Secondary Science
The Heartwood Learning Trust science curriculum aims to equip students with the ability to understand and explain the world through Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, fostering awe, curiosity, and enthusiasm for future STEM pathways.
Built on the KS3 National Curriculum, AQA specifications, and BEST evidence science research, it follows a five-year spiral structure that systematically develops both substantive and disciplinary knowledge. Starting with fundamental concepts in Year 7, students revisit and deepen their understanding of ‘big ideas’ through interleaving disciplines, carefully sequenced learning, and regular assessment, enabling them to progress from novice to expert while applying science to real-world issues.
All curriculum planning documents, including the HLT intent, five-year road map, golden threads, medium term plans, end point documents, national curriculum audit, learning journeys for KS3, and KS3 end point documents, can be found here. Lesson PowerPoints that support delivery of the curriculum are also located in the relevant year and topic folders to ensure clarity, consistency, and ambition across the trust.
Link: Google Drive
Key Stage 4 English
Secondary English combines two disciplines: English literature and English language. Our curriculum seeks to ignite a lifelong love of both disciplines, empowering students to communicate effectively, think critically, and understand the richness of human experience. Through diverse texts and meaningful discussions, we aim to develop confident, articulate individuals who appreciate the power of words to inform, persuade, and inspire.
Built on the KS3 National Curriculum, we currently follow AQA specifications for English literature and Eduqas for English language.
The literature curriculum is based around challenging and resistant texts, using a skills based approach, covering a play, 19th century novel and Shakespeare play. The English language curriculum encourages learners to read fluently and write effectively. Learners should be able to demonstrate a confident control of Standard English and they should be able to write grammatically correct sentences, deploy figurative language and analyse texts. These links contain power points, lesson plans and related documents for KS4.
Link: Year 10 English
Link: Year 11 English
ARK Geography
At Heartwood Learning Trust, we have chosen ArkMastery+ as our KS3 geography curriculum. This comprehensive, knowledge-driven programme is a rich and connected schemata of substantive and disciplinary knowledge that supports all aspects of geographical thinking. All students are entitled to an agreed body of core geographical knowledge and skills, and all students, regardless of background, are supported to access this core body through quality first teaching.
The programme is carefully sequenced to build logically over time, making complex concepts and processes at the heart of its coherent structure. In geography the journey through places is of paramount importance. Good geographers avoid the pitfalls of ‘single stories’; instead, they are able to characterise places, recognising patterns and exceptions and linking these processes and themes to a broader context. For this reason, ‘places’ are interleaved and revisited through the curriculum. All places required by the National Curriculum Programme of Study (PoS) have been included. Most focal countries and regions are in Africa, Asia, and Europe. The rationale is that by returning to the same broad regions, more complex pictures can be painted, rather than attempting to cover all continents meaningfully at KS3.
The Year 7 Autumn term secures foundational geographical knowledge before moving onto major physical and human processes occurring on Earth’s surface, as well as fieldwork and other geographical competencies. Year 8 builds on Year 7 by exploring human interactions with the natural world. Each unit examines reliance on the natural environment and the impacts of resource extraction as populations and wealth rise. We consider how sustainable our actions are, and what creative solutions might look like. Year 9 units draw synoptic links across the curriculum. Units 1–4 explore global connectivity through the lenses of oceans (Autumn) and economy and development (Spring). The summer term brings the curriculum full circle back to UK geography, with a study of glacial landforms and finishing with a comparative fieldwork investigation drawing on knowledge and skills across the course.
Fully resourced and adaptable, our KS3 curriculum is supported by ARK+ progression documents, subject knowledge guides, unit planning guidance, teaching slides, and knowledge organisers. Schools also use high-quality pupil workbooks aligned with the curriculum, with photocopiable versions available in the resources section.
Link: ARK Geography