Outwood Academy City serves our community in Sheffield, the city of steel; it is the crucible from which young people develop our hallmarks:

Industry - We work hard. We are resilient and show the strength required to persevere until we get it right. We take on new challenges positively and do what it takes to get the job done.

Innovation - We change for the better. We seek out new experiences and find joy in new knowledge and understanding. We work together to make tomorrow better than today.

Integrity - We do the right thing for the right reasons. We are honest, kind, and don’t make excuses. We believe that integrity is at the heart of success.

These hallmarks are made through the study and participation in a broad and ambitious curriculum that is knowledge led and taught by experts. We read widely, develop oracy and take opportunities to expose students to the best that has been thought, said and done. All our students are safe, responsible and respectful. We explicitly develop the character of students and place an emphasis on the trust between staff and students.

Through this focus on the industry, innovation and integrity of everyone in our community we put students first, raise standards and transform lives.

An OACi education provides a rich, memorable experience for our students allowing them to grow academically and personally, whilst having an appreciation for the needs of all students. We promote an inclusive and caring culture and ethos encouraging students to be industrious; be innovative and act with integrity. As a result our students will act with kindness, tolerance, inclusivity, safety, respect and responsibility. These values are consistently promoted through our intrinsic curriculum.  

We believe that our curriculum should support our students’ personal growth. We build these aspects into our curriculum to foster personal development and social understanding. We ensure a rich, broad, balanced and ambitious entitlement in our academic curriculum. 

The curriculum is carefully designed to sequence subject knowledge, understanding and skills in order to aid and secure learning and knowledge. We believe in education beyond the classroom and our elective curriculum offers a wealth of enriching opportunities and memorable experiences that our students can participate in, further equipping them with the knowledge and cultural capital that they need to succeed in life. 

Curriculum Planning

Students are best served by developing the hallmarks of industry, innovation and integrity. While our Intrinsic, Enhancement and Elective curricula develop these hallmarks, it is through our Academic Curriculum that this development will be most effectively supported.

We foster an appreciation of the importance of all individual subjects highlighting links and connections to other subjects studied. Each subject provides a narrative or journey of study detailing the what, why and how of its content and assessment. Subject delivery is collaboratively planned by our expert subject directors and department teams. Content is mapped to the National Curriculum and for older students mapped to examination specifications and other subject requirements. 

Our schemes of work are structured to build subject knowledge and skills, revisiting and recapping information to enhance recall and help all students to learn well. In lessons teachers make explicit the learning points, use the most effective methods to ensure it is learnt and will then show them real applications of the theory. 

We believe that knowledge is power. Learning powerful knowledge to automaticity enhances our students’ understanding and frees up their working memory. Our curriculum prioritises reading, oracy and domain specific learning as all children require these to have opportunity and choice when they leave our care. We operate a knowledge led curriculum approach believing subject knowledge supports and strengthens the application of subject skills. Ensuring that all opportunities are explored to add to our students’ cultural capital is a founding principle of the designs of our schemes of work. This supports the development of ordered schemata and therefore future scholars. This aims to powerfully address social disadvantage by engendering an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.