Our approach

At City, we aim to provide an intellectually exciting and rigorous learning environment. Students are constantly encouraged to interrogate their knowledge and understanding, to take risks and to experiment. We seek to provide them with a deep knowledge-based curriculum, but also the skills to scrutinise, synthesise and apply that knowledge in a wide variety of contexts. Discussion is at the heart of every lesson, and we are keen to inculcate in our students a familiarity and ease with ambiguity. They are unfazed by more complex and nuanced areas of study, and are encouraged to grapple with these issues head on.

Outstanding teaching is grounded in evidence, and our ongoing teaching and learning development programme for staff is central to achieving this.  For an overview of our approach to innovation in the curriculum, please refer to our most recent publication, Innovation in Curriculum and Assessment, linked here.  All teaching staff take part in lesson study; a form of research where teachers work together to target an area for development in student learning. Teachers collaboratively research, plan, teach and observe lessons, using ongoing discussion with students and with each other to track and refine their interventions. Our collaborative, classroom-based research allows our teachers to become highly skilled, effective practitioners who are constantly learning themselves.

This is an adventurous place for students and teachers to learn; our curriculum is ever evolving, and our students are well equipped with the tools necessary to be lifelong learners and for whom joy in scholarship for its own sake is a given.