Curriculum

Our aim is to help students become confident, responsible and successful individuals. We also aim to know every student so that they can discover and make the most of their skills and talents. We accept that academic skills and successes are important and we organise our curriculum, lessons and care, guidance and support to ensure that students meet or exceed their academic targets. Importantly, we also want students to leave Blackminster with a love of learning; to have physical, musical design and artistic skills; and to be innovative, creative and reflective. We believe it is vital for our students to care about the environment, about other people and about themselves. To ready them for their place in a complex and changing world our students will have opportunities to solve problems, develop leadership skills and show resilience in challenging situations.

We achieve these aims through lessons, and through a wide range of exciting enrichment activities.
Our special position as a Middle School enables us to offer a broad and balanced curriculum which brings together the best of primary and the best of secondary education. As in secondary schools, our students are taught by subject specialists in superbly-equipped rooms for most of their lessons. For some of their week, however, students will work on creative projects that cross traditional subject boundaries, as in many primary and First Schools. 
The number of lessons per fortnight for each subject is as follows:

	Year 6	Year 7	Year 8
English	10	7	7
Maths	10	7	7
Science	5	5	5
Art	2	2	2
Citizenship		1	1
Design Technology (resistant materials, food and textiles)	2	3	4
French	2	4	4
Geography	2	4	3
History	2	4	3
Information Communication Technology (ICT)	2	2	2
Music	2	2	2
Physical Education (PE)	4	4	4
Cross-curricular project /Year 8 Options	4	3	2X2
Religious Education (RE)	2	2	2
Study skills	1