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.

Our teachers engage in evidence-based practice. We have inter-disciplinary collaborative enquiry groups who meet frequently, observe lessons, and disseminate best practice. Just as we encourage our students to be critical thinkers, we also encourage our teachers to be critical friends to each other. Our collaborative, classroom-based research allows our teachers to become highly skilled, effective practitioners who are constantly learning themselves.

This is an adventurous place 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.