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Curriculum requirements: academies

If your school's reviewing or updating its curriculum, find out what needs to be covered to stay compliant with requirements and meet DfE expectations.

Last reviewed on 22 September 2023See updates
School types: All•School phases: All•Ref: 40531
Contents
  1. Your trust is responsible for the curriculum in your school
  2. Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provision
  3. Key Stage (KS) 1 and 2 provision
  4. Your school also needs to provide for your pupils' SMSC development
  5. Next steps

Your trust is responsible for the curriculum in your school

It must make sure the curriculum is "balanced and broadly based" and that it:

  • Promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society
  • Prepares pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life

This is set out in section 1A of the Academies Act 2010 and section 2.1 of the National Curriculum framework.

There are some other requirements and expectations too, which we explain below.

  • Check your funding agreement to see what it says about curriculum in your trust
  • Ask your trust for more information or if you're unsure of anything in the agreement

You can see an example of how curriculum is covered in the model funding agreement (single academy trust from section 2.41, multi-academy trust from section 2.21) from the Department for Education (DfE).

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provision

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