Curriculum: First - Third Form / Key Stage 3

Hereford Cathedral School is an academically selective, although not elitist, school and all pupils entering the school have demonstrated their potential by successfully meeting our requirements in an entrance examination.

Nevertheless, our pupils come from a wide range of backgrounds - educational, cultural and social - and will have had very diverse experiences of school before coming here. The curriculum in the first three years, therefore, is designed to take into account the inevitable process of adjustment. Pupils will need to get used to our educational methods, which may be more formal than many of them have encountered previously, and accustom themselves to the ethos of the school in general. Some pupils will meet homework for the first time; others may be used to an hour or more a night. It is quite usual for some parents to worry about the amount of work their child has to cope with, while a few parents may be concerned that their child seemed to have more to do at junior school!

The long term academic objective of the curriculum in these first three years is to ensure that all pupils who join us are prepared well to begin their programme of study in the fourth and fifth years, and subsequently success at GCSE and beyond. Whilst keeping abreast of necessary change at this time of continuing national debate, we are striving to provide a learning environment which is stable, happy and secure.