Our trust vision is lived everyday:

Aspire Believe Achieve.

Our dedicated team works together with parents, governors and our wider community to ensure that each student develops the knowledge, skills and independence to achieve. We believe that there are no limits to what they can learn.  Every student has the right to the very best possible learning experiences and everyone can succeed. All students have the right to access the same curriculum offer, with groupings in place to support staff with delivery and pedagogical licence.

Our curriculum aims to deliver Cultural Capital - equity of opportunity for our young people to aspire and achieve. No child is left behind or disadvantaged by circumstances beyond their control.  We are all committed to bridging any gaps, enriching wider frames of reference and supporting student passion for lifelong learning. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion are at the heart of our academy vision and student values.

• Continue to review and develop the curriculum, to ensure that it fulfils our aim to provide a wide range of learning and cultural experiences for pupils, especially in music (Ofsted 2019)
• Clear skills and knowledge progression, sequenced from Years 7 – 13, providing depth and breadth across a wide range of subjects
• Spiral curriculum planning that builds new knowledge and skills onto foundational teaching
• Numeracy & Reading is at the heart of learning in KS3, with all curriculum leaders taking ownership of supporting these foundation skills
• Closing gaps in learning, particularly subject specific gaps created by the Covid-19 pandemic
• Contextual knowledge experiences, bespoke to our local context, designed to support cultural capital
• Frames of reference to support high quality destinations
• Non-assessed enrichment opportunities within our core offer

Our KS3 offer includes: English, Reading, Maths, Science, History, Geography, Active Humanities, RE/Citizenship, French, Music & Performing Arts, Computing & Technology, Art, Catering, PE, RSHE & Enrichment. This offer builds into KS4 and KS5 pathways for students, allowing 2 free choice Academic and Technical qualifications, along with Statistics to support attainment in Mathematics.

Leaders have identified and created regular contextual experiences to close existing cultural capital gaps. In order to enrich and extend our provision leaders have deliberately designed the curriculum to include non-assessed elements to support contextual knowledge and skill building beyond qualifications, including:

• Daily Enrichment
• RE/Citizenship
• RSHE delivery (inc. RSE)

The curriculum provides fair access to an EBACC entry.  French is studied as part of the core curriculum from Year 7 – 11 in order to support cultural capital. We are also passionate about supporting students with qualifications in languages outside of our core offer.

A whole school approach to the promotion of reading has been at the heart of Lower Academy planning since Ofsted visited (Oct 2019). All students in Year 7 & 8 study a Reading curriculum designed to close gaps and secure foundation skills to support students across their curriculum subjects.

The KS3 curriculum allows for students to have access to a variety of subjects, with a view to an open offer at KS4. These are valuable for building cultural capital and provide important life skills which support our moral purpose. All these subjects are crucial to a well-rounded learner and therefore, have been deliberately protected to ensure engagement and passion for learning.