Curriculum

As a Dixons academy, our curriculum is aligned to a common set of Trust-wide principles which are underpinned by our mission to challenge educational and social disadvantage in the North and in the north of Liverpool, in particular. We believe all students are entitled to an ambitious, knowledge-rich curriculum which will open doors and maximise life chances.

At Dixons Fazakerley Academy, we challenge educational and social inequality by developing powerful knowledge through an academic curriculum which is broad and balanced. Each subject specifies, in detail, the knowledge (both substantive and disciplinary) students will remember, underpinned by the National Curriculum and wider subject domains. As such, in each discipline, students are prepared for national assessments, and more importantly, acquire the powerful knowledge that builds wider cultural capital and allows students to access the diversity of experience in the wider world.

We have considered the knowledge and skills we want our students to have mastered in each academic field so that they achieve our aspirational mission of ‘succeeding at university, or a real alternative, thriving in a top job and having a great life.’ High-quality subject specialists then plan backwards from this end point to intelligently sequence the curriculum so that each phase builds on what has come before and prepares for what comes after. It is this careful and meticulous consideration of what students learn and in what order that provides the richest narrative possible for our students.

By employing our curriculum as progression model, we make knowledge stick so that it can be flexibly applied in a variety of different contexts and situations. Both Key Stage 3 and 4 are not seen as distinct from each other but as part of a connected journey through the curriculum. All schemes of learning are planned to build on existing knowledge, thus developing students’ schema, whilst also preparing students for the knowledge they will encounter later on in their academy journey. Our GCSE offer is broad and balanced with a strong core in the EBacc - English, Mathematics, Science, French or Spanish, and History or Geography. All students also study PDS and can choose two further options from a range of subjects such as: Computing, Art and Design, Design Technology, Music and PE.

The DFA curriculum:

• has powerful knowledge at its heart;
• is sequenced in such a way that students are able to build a strong schema – linking prior knowledge to new;
• promotes the teaching of reading and academic vocabulary in every subject;
• equips our students with the cultural capital to be successful by exposing to knowledge and worlds beyond their lived experiences;
• actively seeks to tell the story of the marginalised;
• promotes authentic links between different subjects.

Art

Computing

Design & Technology

Drama

English

Enterprise

French

Geography

Health & Social Care

History

Maths

Music

PDS

PE

RE

Science

Spanish