Everyone deserves a chance to shine, whatever their interests and passions. That is why we deliver a balanced curriculum, where choice is central, and the individual learner is given priority.
Throughout their time at Sherborne, our boys have the opportunity to try a rich variety of disciplines, ensuring they find their niche and are given all the encouragement they need to excel.
Third Form
Key to our provision in the Third Form is a commitment to giving boys every opportunity to experience a variety of subject areas, so they can identify the ones in which they thrive.
The core disciplines of Maths, English and Science make up a significant proportion of our teaching, to ensure boys have the foundational skills on which their future success is built.
Alongside this, boys have the chance to experience History, Geography, Modern Languages, Latin and an array of creative pursuits including Drama, Music, Music Technology, Art and Design Technology.
We aim to equip boys with the skills, training and experience they need to become digitally literate. We request that all boys attending the School come equipped with a Microsoft Surface device. For further detail, please click on the booklet below.
As a result of this breadth, by the time boys make decisions about their GCSE subjects, they have a clear sense of where their strengths and enthusiasms lie. That helps prepare for the next phase in their educational journey.
Fourth and Fifth Forms
In addition to the core disciplines, boys can choose four GCSE subjects to study. We make no stipulations about these choices. The joy of our full-boarding environment is that we have enough space in the timetable to make almost any combination of subjects work.
Most boys choose to study a modern foreign language, recognising the importance of such a skill to their long-term employability. But the core of our approach is that boys have a chance to immerse themselves in an area of the curriculum in which they thrive, so that they develop specialist knowledge from a young age and lay the perfect foundations for their future flourishing.
Sixth Form
With the firm foundation of their GCSE years behind them, Sherborne’s pupils are well equipped for the rigours of A levels. While in many schools this is the moment of specialisation for pupils, at Sherborne the encouragement in previous years to begin carving a niche means our boys already have a good sense of their strengths.
As with GCSE options, we are committed to making any combination of subjects work for our pupils, even if that requires off-timetable teaching. Our teachers relish the chance to teach A levels, and we work closely with our neighbouring schools to make the widest possible selection of disciplines available.
In addition to core study, our sixth formers have plenty of enrichment options. Foremost among these is the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), which gives them the opportunity to investigate a topic of their choice in detail, then produce a 5,000-word essay and project presentation on their findings. It’s a fantastic preparation for university study, and proves hugely popular among pupils who enjoy in-depth examination of a subject close to their hearts.
That is the essence of our approach to academic study at Sherborne: we encourage our boys to throw themselves into rigorous, disciplined and focused activity that fires their enthusiasm and draws them ever deeper into the adventure of learning.
