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Academic

A knowledge-based curriculum. We believe that all pupils can acquire high levels of knowledge to allow them to analyse, discern and argue from strength and accuracy and this supports greater creativity. All pupils will have knowledge map booklets that comprehensively cover these essential building blocks.  There is a carefully constructed curriculum that builds in constant self-testing to ensure knowledge is secure and to give pupils a growth and improvement-focused mindset. Intelligence can be increased – it is not static. 

One of the mainstays of The Cestrian Way is our take on ‘homework’. We use PREP – for ‘preparation’ - to encourage low-stakes learning of key requirements for the next lesson. All pupils should aim to do about 15 minutes of learning per subject per night. That’s about 1 ½ hours of homeworking. Key Stage 4 should be doing PREP+ and adding an hour or so to that amount.  Parents are in a great place to support prep by simply testing their child’s RECALL of the prep, helping those vital facts to get stored in long-term memory.