Our approach to learning
“EDUCATION IS THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON WHICH YOU CAN USE TO CHANGE THE WORLD.” NELSON MANDELA
Quality of Education
Our curriculum is designed to have high expectations for all learners whilst deliberately building their knowledge and vocabulary. It is the foundation on which reading comprehension, critical thinking and a range of other necessary lifelong skills are built.
The curriculum is sequenced and planned inline with the National Curriculum Framework to ensure our learners make progress through the transition of KS2 to KS3 and KS4 to KS5.
Our key values of honesty, excellence and aspiration underpin and support everything that we do in every lesson and across the academy.
- A Curriculum for ALL (No child left behind)
- Knowledge-rich (sequence clearly articulated)
- Ambitious (with a focus on Teaching to the Top)
- Emphasis on long term memory and recall
Knowledge Rich Curriculum
In our academy we pride ourselves on a curriculum that is accessible to all. This means at Key Stage 3 students have access to a broad and balanced curriculum that develops their resilience, communication and creativity, alongside their knowledge and understanding of key subjects such as English, maths and science. Knowledge is power and every subject is content rich. Topics are carefully selected for students to study across Key stage 3 and Key stage 4. Opportunities are carefully planned through Connect activities which allow retrieval and recall of information to inform of student progress. Sequencing of lessons is explicit to allow our students to have a clear understanding of their curriculum and how this links lesson to lesson.
Ambitious Curriculum
Our curriculum is deliberately ambitious for all students with a focus on high expectations for all and Teaching to the Top. We therefore have an expectation that staff utilise professional development opportunities to draw on a range of strategies and promote opportunities for students to use their existing knowledge and these are:
Connect Activities– recall, retrieval tasks to ensure knowledge has been learned and remembered.
Low stakes quizzes- and Exit tickets– used regularly to check student understanding from lessons and to support teacher planning.
Home learning tasks– to help students develop powerful knowledge.
Formative assessment for learning– used frequently to identify misconceptions and gaps in knowledge and allow for re-teach.
Summative assessment– a cumulative process which allows students to drawer on knowledge they have learnt previously in the year or during the course.
To enrich and motivate our learners, teachers will utilise powerful stories, conflicts and dilemmas to instil curiosity and problem solving.
Students’ know why they are learning and what they are learning in each lesson experience they encounter.
Teachers embed challenge into every lesson and model excellence for our students to follow. They identify and plan for misconceptions and reteach content explicitly, with further instructions, so that all learning is accessible to all learners.