Secondary Curriculum
Year 7- 11 classes enjoy a full secondary curriculum taught by secondary teaching specialists. All the teaching staff have a track record of examination and teaching excellence in the state sector.

Academic Ethos
Small class sizes enable pupils to make rapid progress and become enthusiastic and independent learners.

School expects a high degree of personal motivation and a commitment to educational endeavour. Although not academically selective, the high pupil teacher ratio allows every child to receive the individual teacher feedback and one to one guidance to ensure academic success.

Pupils are expected to give 100% effort at all times. They make good progress as a result.  The school is committed to address every pupil’s educational requirements individually.

We are particulary interested in the development of accelerated learning teaching techniques. The school has children who qualify for registration with IGGY (International Gateway for Gifted and Talented Youth http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/study/iggy/) and is providing enriched curriculum opportunities for gifted children.

The Core Curriculum
A strong academic curriculum is delivered in the traditional disciplines of Maths, Science, Modern Foreign Languages, Humanities and English. Standards are high and expectations of pupil challenging.

Languages
All pupils are taught French and Spanish in Years 7-9 and have the option to continue with these at GCSE level. Additional GCSE languages are available as a twighlight session.

Year 10 GCSE Options September 2011
The Year 10 GCSE options selected by pupils for next year are:

Maths, Statistics, English Language and English Literature, Biology, Chemistry and Physics, Modern World History, Geography, Economics, Physical Education, Spanish and French. Next year the children have not opted to take ICT, Music or Art at GCSE level although these options were available.

Mathematics
This Year 9 class have made such good progress that all pupils have been entered for GCSE mathematics this year. This is due to their hard work and excellent individual progress. The class itself has a full spread of ability including gifted pupils and the less able, with a full spread imbetween however no pupil is expected to achieve less than a grade C.

The class have also picked up a statistics examination this year as an extra, for fun!

Science
School has made a strong commitment to the teaching of seperate sciences as part of the core curriculum in KS3 and KS4. It is delivered as Chemistry, Biology and Physics from Year 7 all of which are compulsary at GCSE.

Humanities
The humanities subjects,(History, Geography and RE) broadly follow the National Curriculum. Pupils have the option to agree a GCSE specification. Modern World History, Medicine through Time and, Ancient History have been selected by different year groups in recent years.

Performing Arts
Music is an area where the school has begun to build up greater specialist teaching and ‘state of the art’ ICT resources. Music is compulsary in Year 7-9, and supported by a strong drama tradition and the availability of a good range of private instrumental tution. All pupils can learn Keyboard and percussion. Tuition for all Brass instruments, guitar, woodwind, percussion and strings are available in school.

Performances are an important part of school life. Musical and dramatic productions take place in the Autumn Term and have been delivered at Albany Science College, Chorley in recent years.

During the Autimn Term 2012 the secondary and primary pupils staged their innovative version of 'Scrooge'l supported by an ensemble of musical and dramatic acts which played to a large audience in the main hall at St Michael's Academy in Chorley.

Mr Boardman launched the new school Samba Band this term and scheduled the first of a new series of musical concerts to run every year.

Physical Education & Sporting Opportunities
The school PE facilities are subject to a programme of rapid development. Specialist sports coaching is used for most of the activities, including swimming, dance, gymnastics, cricket, football, hockey, basket ball, netball, athletics and outdoor pursuits.

PE and the extra-curricular programme
Secondary PE has been timetabled as a whole school session this year. Pupils are grouped by ability and from Year 9 can follow the GCSE PE programme enabling talented pupils to potentially obtain early GCSE accreditation. Currently Pupils in Years 6-9 have 4 hours of PE each week.

The school has a strong tradition of outdoor pursuits and expedition training which eventually feeds into the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme in Year 9.

Fencing is a compulsary discipline in school and taught by a specialist Fencing Master Mr Marshall who was in the GBR Mens Sabre Squad which achieved a Commonwealth Gold Medal last year.