Access to Curriculum

Young people deserve equal opportunity to access a broad and balanced curriculum.

Inclusion is at the heart of the curriculum design with a variety of accredited vocational courses on offer to all students that match their skills and abilities. The Academy seeks to match curriculum opportunities to the preferred learning styles of each student to maximise levels of engagement and raise standards.

Personalised Learning

In allowing equal access to curriculum and learning opportunities, we will develop our Academy in a manner that allows personalised learning with due regard to individual learning styles and the advantages of independent learning skills. We will use appropriate assessment strategies and methods to identify and foster individual creativity, qualities and skills. Assessment for learning will form an important route towards the facilitation of the progress of individual learners. Environmental design and resource allocation will be a significant factor in allowing individual education plans to be administered.

Key Educational Features

The Academy curriculum will be developed to deliver key outcomes progressively with full implementation in the new building by:

• Raising the levels of literacy and numeracy.

• Addressing the low aspirations evident in some sectors of the local community.

• Providing strong ICT and enterprise skills throughout.

• Offering key support through the Academy’s Specialism: Global Communication.

• Strengthening personalised learning programmes.

• Using quality systems to track progress and set individual targets for all students.

• Ensuring accessibility for students of all abilities, including those with special needs.

• Providing a flexible delivery mechanism that would provide variety and opportunity to students and other members of the community.

• Providing a strong yet flexible Leadership Team.

Curriculum

The specialist focus of the Academy will be Global Communication which will build on, and develop the existing strengths of the predecessor schools. Students in KS3 will follow a competency based curriculum, alongside the core subjects of English, Maths, Science and PE. They will be based in designated teaching spaces. The curriculum will be delivered through cross-curricular projects designed to encourage both collaborative and independent work, emotional literacy, social skills and a development of the essential learning skills required to access the curriculum further up the school. This will mean that there will be much less disorientating movement around the school and students and staff in Year 7 in particular, will form closer and stronger relationships much more quickly, supporting their transition to a larger Academy.

Throughout the rest of Key Stage 3, students will follow the National Curriculum with innovative approaches to teaching and learning that will develop the skills of enterprise and communication and will provide a wide variety of opportunities both in the timetabled day and during out of hours learning.

Year 8 and 9 students will be given the opportunity to make certain curriculum choices in preparation for Key Stage 4.

In Year 10, students will have access to a variety of ‘pathways’ which will give them the right mix of vocational and academic learning to suit their own particular strengths and styles of learning. A wide range of choices is being made available, building on those which have traditionally been offered in the predecessor schools. These opportunities will be shared at the Key Stage 4 Pathways Evening on 13th March 2008.

Year 11 students will have full access to all GCSE courses they have been studying in Year 10 to ensure continuity in their studies. One of the highest priorities is to ensure that Year 11 students are not disadvantaged in any way as the new Academy opens.

KS3 and KS4 Learning Centres

The advantages of the KS3/ KS4 Academy split are numerous but the points we would place emphasis upon during our communications activities would be;

• All students will be wholly based on a single site for their normal curriculum and will only travel for special events, some physical education or enrichment activities.

• This approach would enable us to achieve the longer-term vision of the Academy.

• Provides us with the ability to best use the ‘rich’ level of resources offered from both sites avoiding overcrowding and overstretched resources.

• Utilisation of both sites and continued provision of community facilities.

• The straightforward split will be easier for students and families to understand.

• The purposeful use of both sites avoids either being seen as a mere annexe with the consequent sense of disempowerment.

• We can develop specialist resources for KS4 students on the Woolston site.