Our Mission Statement is:

'To educate each and every unique child in our care, to hear and respond to what God calls them to be'

This means that we aspire to give every child the opportunity to explore their vocation in life and achieve their best both academically and personally, within a framework of spiritual and moral guidance. We therefore place great importance on delivering an ambitious, broad and balanced subject curriculum to our pupils.

This subject curriculum is underpinned by our Catholic Ethos and SJW Values. It includes core subjects of English, Mathematics, Science and Religious Education which are studied for all 5 years. Our Key Stage 3 curriculum goes beyond the National Curriculum requirements and includes Enterprise (Computing, Business and Media) and Lifestyle (Healthy Body, Healthy Mind and Lifeskills) lessons along with History, Geography, Modern Foreign Languages, Performing Arts (Drama and Music), Art and Design (Art, Design Technology and Food Technology) and  Physical Education. At Key Stage 4 there are a range of academic and vocational qualifications that pupils can choose to study. We also offer the opportunity for pupils to gain a qualification in their home language. Click on the subject links to the side of this statement to find out more about the curriculum design, knowledge and skills for each subject offered. 

The development of literacy and numeracy skills are threaded throughout each subject's curriculum and staff use a range of strategies to promote a love of reading. Click here to find out more about our literacy strategies.

​Staff also take every opportunity to include aspects of personal development where they link to subject topics. Click here to find out more about our personal development curriculum. 

Parents can support their child's understanding of each subject through our Development and Examination Homework.

Development Homework aims to deepen knowledge and foster a love of learning. Subjects provide a resource menu for independent, remote learning to broaden pupils’ curriculum knowledge and build their cultural capital.  Pupils can access a range of homework tasks covering topics and skills taught in each subject. 

Examination Homework focuses on revision and memory skills. We want our pupils to be confident learners and therefore, provide plenty of practice to build pupils’ knowledge and skills, with increasing fluency, through calendared assessments.  Pupils will receive examination homework revision booklets six weeks prior to their assessment week. Tasks are designed to develop revision skills, retrieve prior knowledge, and grow the skills and habits for confidence in sitting examinations. 

This curriculum and homework design is highly successful. Many pupils start at Saint John Wall with below average attainment from Primary School. Our teachers expertly deliver each subject and enable pupils to rapidly make progress. Year 11 examinations (2017, 2018, 2019) show that pupils make well above national average progress. In the 2019 examinations 54% of pupils gained at least one of the top qualification grades (7, 8 or 9). During the pandemic we taught a full remote curriculum (click here for our remote learning page) to reduce the impact of school closures, and 99% of pupils who left the school in July 2021 went on to further education or training (the other 1% left the country).