Our curriculum explained

One of the great joys of recent weeks has been seeing just how excited my senior team have been in discussions about our curriculum; teachers very rarely get the chance to design a whole-school curriculum from the ground up, so we are jumping at this chance. Our conversations with families have been similar energising, as we have been able to talk with passion about not only what children will study, but how their learning is designed, sequenced, and brought to life over time, and supports or core mission of developing Confident, Able and Responsible young people. 

Our curriculum is based on the National Curriculum for England, enriched to meet KHDA and Ministry of Education requirements, and shaped by the values and academic traditions of Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet. What differentiates it is not novelty, but intentionality. 

There’s a real temptation in education to race through content, to cover more, move faster, tick things off. But at QE Dubai Sports City, we’ve chosen a different path. Across all phases, our curriculum is carefully sequenced so that learning builds thoughtfully over time.  

We’re not interested in fleeting coverage; we’re committed to secure understanding. Instead of treating knowledge as something to “get through,” we deliberately revisit and refine it over time. Each return is purposeful, building in complexity, strengthening disciplinary thinking, and embedding key skills. This structured revisiting ensures that understanding is not superficial or short-lived, but secure, cumulative, and deeply rooted within each subject, allowing learning to deepen rather than fragment. 

This is the essence of a conceptual, spiral curriculum. Ideas are not taught once and left behind; they evolve. They grow with the learner. 

At the heart of this approach are the big ideas that thread everything together: identity, change, perspective, sustainability, and power. These concepts act as a golden thread of our curriculum, helping students to see patterns, make links, and transfer their understanding across subjects and contexts.  

Alongside this, is our commitment to a literacy as the driver of learning. Through high-quality texts and rich dialogue students experience meaningful learning that allows them to connect on a personal level, develop empathy with protagonists, and learn resilience through the experiences of others, while also acquiring sophisticated vocabulary and an appreciation for the craft of language. 

Ultimately, we’re not shaping our ambitious curriculum, we are shaping thinkers that are confident, able and responsible. 

Each subject at QE Dubai Sports City is taught as a distinct academic discipline by experts. Students learn to think, read, write, and reason as scholars, engaging with high-quality texts, precise language, and subject-specific ways of thinking. 

Classroom practice is grounded in evidence-informed teaching: clear explanation, careful modelling, purposeful questioning, and regular checks for understanding. Small class sizes allow teachers to adapt learning responsively, ensuring all students, including the highly able, multilingual learners, and those requiring additional support, can access an ambitious curriculum. 

I was reminded recently, during curriculum planning with Belle, how disciplined good curriculum design needs to be. Much of our work focused not on what to add, but on what to refine or remove, so that learning remains focused and intellectually demanding. Every element of our curriculum  

One of our most significant academic decisions is the introduction of a three-year GCSE programme, beginning in Year 9. This structure allows students the time they need to master challenging material without unnecessary pressure or premature narrowing. 

We’ve decided on this because we think the benefits are clear: 

• Stronger foundations before examination courses begin 
• Greater depth of understanding and retention 
• Protection of subject breadth and academic rigour 

We are clear that strong outcomes come from mastery and that having the time to think and explore beyond the narrow confines of an exam specification will help develop the skills that students need to thrive. 

We are proud to be opening our first international campus in the UAE, and have spent a lot of time ensuring that we have an Arabic, Islamic Education, Moral Education, and UAE Social Studies team that will deliver an integrated programme, with teaching and learning standards that are identical to those we expect across the curriculum.  

Our carefully selected key texts play a significant role in this, providing rich, authentic contexts through which our students can explore the Moral, Social and Cultural (MSC) dimensions of the curriculum, opening up space for genuine connections, thoughtful reflection, and rich dialogue in our classrooms. Students grapple with and make sense of key themes, build character, and reflect on what it means to make the right choices for themselves and our community. 

Academic learning at QE Dubai Sports City is enriched by our signature programmes, including QE Flourish Programme, which supports character development through creativity, challenge, competition, and care. I’ll explore this in more detail in a future post, but it’s important to say that our curriculum is designed to educate the whole child. 

That having been said, we are also excited about the spaces in which we will deliver this ambitious curriculum. Whether it’s in our Food Tech lab, our Robotics Lab, our E-Sports Classroom, Yoga Studio, or Science Labs, the whole process from design to execution has been viewed through our approach to learning and teaching, and we are looking forward to being able to tour families around it in the coming weeks. 

Today we had members of the team from our partners at King’s College Hospital on-site to help with the commissioning of our clinic. It was good to see life springing into such a vital space in the school. Our partnership with King’s goes beyond the medical centre, and over the coming weeks we will be able to share more about the breadth and depth of this wellbeing partnership.  

Meanwhile, one of our IT contractors was on site installing SMART boards in classrooms. These are the best interactive resources available on the market, and tie closely with our curriculum. While we must ensure that technology is used judiciously, ensuring that our students have access to the best-in-class technology when they do.