Secondary Curriculum Implementation
̨Íåswag Secondary Curriculum Experience
Across our academies we have a shared articulation for our ̨Íåswag curriculum experience which follows the journey of a child from Early Years to Post 16. Our curriculum provision maps our Intrinsic Curriculum - which builds our inclusive, caring culture and ethos; our Enhancement Curriculum - which fosters personal development and social understanding; our Academic Curriculum - which sequences knowledge, understanding and skills to aid learning; and our Elective Curriculum - which offers enriching opportunities and experiences for all. Together, these elements provide not just a broad and balanced academic experience but also a wealth of treasured and enriching experiences for all the children and young people we educate.
Our Curriculum Model and Rationale
Across our Trust we localise our secondary academies’ curriculum rationales and models ensuring their curriculum architecture is bespoke to the academy whilst reflecting Trust best practice. The architecture of our curriculum models how each of our academies structure and allocate time across year groups and key stages to best deliver their subjects, tutorial, breaks, lunches, assemblies and wider curriculum delivery. Our curriculum models are designed to ensure our academies effectively deliver our Trust’s shared curriculum intent by providing a broad and balanced curriculum and rich educational experience. Our academies’ curriculum models are individually designed to best meet the needs of their students and locality for example by reflecting upon courses that support the local and national job market and those that have been positive destination subjects for their students etc.
Our academies provide a clear rationale for their curriculum model explaining how its design for example it may promote specific values and skills or meet important local and national agendas such as health and wellbeing. This local flexibility allows academies to personalise their provision to their school community for example the delivery of modern foreign languages may differ in terms of the languages taught; the number of languages offered, the provision of literacy and EAL additional English provision and the subject time allocation for each year group. Across the Trust our academies will bespoke the subject offer in their Level 2/ GCSE Guided Pathways and Post 16 subject provision etc. Details of academy curriculum models and their rationales can be found on our academy websites in their curriculum pages.
Our Curriculum Entitlement
Our curriculum reflects the ambitious intent of the National Curriculum. Students begin their secondary experience studying a rich programme of English, maths, science, geography, history, one or two modern foreign languages, physical education, computer science, religious education and citizenship studied through our RE/Life programme and a range of expressive arts including art, music, drama or dance and technology subjects such as food, textiles, resistant materials etc.
Students study a broad range of subjects and learning opportunities to deepen their educational experience and build a solid foundation of subject knowledge and skills. Academic & technical study at Level 1 / Level 2 (including GCSE) are studied across two years offering a wide entitlement to subjects including those which make up the Full English Baccalaureate* i.e. GCSE in one English (Literature or English Language), mathematics, two sciences (including computer science), one humanities subject (geography or history) and a modern foreign language. There is opportunity to study triple or combined sciences and a wide selection of open subjects are offered including a range of expressive arts subjects, religious education, technology subjects, physical education, social sciences including Business Studies etc. Each academy has a bespoke open element offer. We design time and flexibility for large numbers of students to choose creative subjects for study up to 16 years old. Opportunity is also constructed to facilitate additional English and Maths study for those students who require this support.
* To achieve the Full English Baccalaureate students must achieve a Grade 5 in each of these subjects.
Student Engagement
Opportunities for students to experience achievement and choice are maximised and promoted across our five year secondary curriculum. Effort and success are recognised and encouraged. Students become motivated and engaged by their improving subject fluency and achievement and their right to choose how to deepen their studies as they progress across key stages. Advice and guidance underpin our curriculum modelling ensuring our students have regular points of discussion with senior leaders and parents/ carers about their current and future study choices, changing interests and developing aspirations.
We provide points of flexibility and personalisation within our broad and balanced offer to enhance student engagement and success. At Level 1 and Level 2 (including GCSE) every subject/qualification is open to every student. There are no pathways that prevent students from studying certain subject combinations. We build our timetables around our students’ choices removing the restriction of option blocks to create greater freedom for students to deepen their selected study. Level 2 courses are all studied across 2 years however some academy curriculum models may choose to operate a limited selection of courses across Year 9 and 10 as well as Year 10 and 11 to personalise our students’ study portfolio. Where this occurs it will be explained in the academy curriculum model rationale as this decision is localised to best support our students’ needs and reflect the academy’s journey.
Our Subject Overviews
We provide examples of subject curriculum overviews, which can be viewed by clicking here. These provide an overview of the subject’s delivery and assessment.
Please visit our individual academy websites to view their bespoke subject curriculum overviews for all the subjects they offer.
Curriculum Planning
We foster an appreciation of the importance of all individual subjects highlighting links and connections to other subjects studied. Each subject provides a narrative or journey of study detailing the what, why and how of its content and assessment. Subject delivery is collaboratively planned by our expert subject directors and department teams. Content is mapped to the National Curriculum and for older students mapped to examination specifications etc. Our schemes of work are structured to build subject knowledge and skills, revisiting and recapping information to enhance recall and help all students to learn well. In lessons teachers share with students what they are learning, how it will be learned and why it is important. We believe knowledge is powerful when remembered as it enhances our students’ understanding and application of subject-specific and transferable skills. Our curriculum prioritises strong literacy and numeracy skills as all students require these core skills to achieve. We operate a knowledge engaged curriculum approach believing subject knowledge supports and strengthens the application of subject skills.
An inclusive curriculum
Care and Guidance underpins all aspects of our inclusive provision assisting our students to enjoy their education, feel valued and develop both academically and personally. All students are supported in their learning and encouraged to engage in every aspect of school life.
Should students experience barriers to their learning be they academic, physical, emotional or social we promptly intervene to support their access to the curriculum and enjoyment of school. Our academies operate strong inclusion practices led by our Special Educational Needs, Inclusion and Deep Support teams and our Bridge and Personalised Learning Centres and English as an additional language Discovery provision etc. We also have several academies with additional resource provision for special educational needs for example physical disability, autism etc. (more information is given on academy websites).
Our students are taught in age-appropriate classes and supported to learn, contribute and participate in all aspects of academy life. Effective learning requires the processes of forgetting and recall, we ensure regular opportunities to revisit and revise what has been learnt so that study is regularly refreshed and recalled. Our feedback and assessment practices monitor when the intended learning has not been fully secured by students and our teachers effectively intervene, adjusting their teaching to do things differently to help all students learn well.
For those students with special educational needs and disabilities who require reasonable adjustments to support their needs we ensure access arrangements are in place to support their normal way of working and where required deploy teaching assistant support (link to SEND information).
There is a strong focus on students’ literacy and numeracy skills and where appropriate we facilitate increased access to English and Maths. Small group intervention is used to target gaps in understanding in core subjects. For students who miss aspects of their learning or require extra help catch up activities and targeted support are readily available. Elective after-school intervention and access to online learning programs are provided for those students seeking extra assurance and help.
Assessment & Praising Stars©
Assessment is mapped to National Curriculum age related expectation and Level 1/ 2 course assessment objectives as appropriate. Progression across each subject pathway is expertly planned so that learning in any one year builds effectively to the next. Feedback is regular and timely and occurs both during the lesson and through written feedback. Students are encouraged to engage with all feedback in dedicated Student Response Time (SRT) activities. An ethic of excellence is promoted through our PROUD practice directing students to take pride in their work and strive for accuracy. Each half term parents and students receive a Praising Stars© report providing academic assessment for each subject, an effort grade, attendance and behaviour information. In the lower years, students’ current performance is assessed against age-related expectations mapped and benched marked across each subject’s scheme of study. In the older years, where students are studying GCSE Level 1/ 2 courses, a prediction is made on their expected performance in the subject examination, this is informed by regular assessments.
The assessment information is used to effectively intervene with students and best meet their changing needs. Intervention is embedded into our feedback and assessment practices. A wide range of strategies are used within our teachers’ planning and responsive practices and beyond the lesson through small group tuition, after school or break time support, master classes, access to online learning programmes such as Hegarty Maths or in class support and targeted homework etc.
Literacy and Numeracy
There is a strong focus on students’ literacy and numeracy skills within our curriculum. Our academies Literacy and a Numeracy Coordinators promote the focus of these skills across the curriculum and our Directors of English and Maths support the development and tracking of these initiatives etc. Academies provide a variety of programmes and initiatives such as Fresh Start, Accelerated Reader and reciprocal reading etc. (see Reading below). Our academies operate a Written Accuracy Campaign to focus students’ punctuation and spelling accuracy. Spelling programmes are used and subject vocabulary is defined and promoted in lessons. Marking codes are consistently used across all subjects. In numeracy consistent approaches are promoted across subjects and programmes such as Numeracy Ninjas and Maths Rock Stars operate. For those students requiring specific literacy and numeracy support, small group and bespoke programmes are provided.
Reading
We believe reading unlocks our curriculum, opens a treasure trove of adventures and information and provides an invaluable life skill. Our academies’ libraries are viewed as learning resource centres. Our friendly helpful librarians ensure they are vibrant, welcoming spaces with well stocked shelves, computer access and a quiet place to study. Across each term our libraries run exciting promotions and seasonal events to share the joy of reading and advertise what’s new.
A variety of different reading programmes operate within our academies to support our students’ love of reading and reading fluency. Academies provide a phased approach to reading that encourages reading at every level. Fresh Start phonics programmes support emergent readers alongside Lexia a comprehensive computer based and personalised reading programme, specifically designed for Year 7 onwards. Students are supported to increase their automatic word recognition by reinforcing phonic elements and sound/symbol relationships. Intervention activities provide extensive practice in everything from basic phonological awareness to advanced word-attack strategies, as well as vocabulary development based on Greek and Latin word roots. Whilst Accelerated Reader aims to develop a lifelong love of reading, motivate students to read more challenging books and most importantly raise literacy standards for students of all ages and abilities which will benefit them not only in English but also across our curriculum. With a greater emphasis on literacy across all subjects, Accelerated Reader is a vital part of our curriculum to develop not only reading skills but also students’ range of vocabulary and comprehension skills. Our departments focus the importance of subject vocabulary within their delivery to develop content knowledge and aid reading in lessons. Our academies provide opportunities to encourage older students to read with younger students and to provide opportunities to discuss what they are reading. In class subjects design activities that encourage students to read for information. We ask parents to encourage their child to read at home.
Personal Development
Our inclusive curriculum celebrates diversity and promotes tolerance and mutual respect of others. Our academies carefully map how our curriculum provision supports our students’ personal growth and promotes fundamental British Values; social, moral, spiritual and cultural awareness; personal, social and health education and relationship and sex education. To complement our students’ academic study, we design our Enhancement Curriculum elements to provide a wealth of opportunities to develop our students' personal growth and understanding of their wider world and future lives.
Mental Wellbeing
We ensure a positive learning environment where our students feel happy and able to flourish; this underpins everything we do. Within our curriculum we foster positive relationships, self-worth and acceptance teaching our students to recognise risk, accountability and positive choices. We have provided a website page on each academy’s website to provide a comprehensive range of national and local services for our students and parents to access support for their mental wellbeing. We all have times when we have low mental well-being, where we feel stressed, upset or find it difficult to cope.
At our Trust we want to give our young people the necessary support to build and develop emotional resilience and to maintain good emotional health. Our aim is to ensure that our students enjoy their time at school and are happy. There are many things that can impact on the emotional well-being of our students: keeping up with studies, falling out with friends, the pressures of social media, difficulties at home etc. We want all our young people to have good emotional health, the skills and confidence to cope with change, the ability to think through and solve problems and ultimately achieve their goals and be happy. Our Trust is committed to the principles of securing good emotional wellbeing, to allow every young person to have the best possible experience and outcomes throughout their school journey.
Careers
Career learning is increasingly embedded into the taught curriculum. Our Trust has strong links with local businesses and colleges and provides personal independent age appropriate guidance and support for students. The careers education and guidance programme at our academies seeks to positively support our students to acquire the educational, social and employability skills necessary for lifelong success in a diverse and changing world of work. CareersInc works in partnership with our Trust to provide high quality, impartial advice and guidance to enable students to make the right decisions about their future. Independent CareersInc advisers are based in our academies one or two days per week.
Applied Inspiration works in partnership with our Trust developing subject resources that can be embedded into our curriculum subject delivery. We plan to provide up to 9 career learning experiences across each year group through their subject study. This collaborative work involves our subject curriculum teams, businesses and higher education providers to create relevant subject/ career specific film resources that illustrate how the aspect of our students’ subject learning translates to the workplace and higher education. This unique work will enable our students to gain meaningful encounters with higher education and employers.
Tutor Group Programme
Within our academies, we have two models for tutoring with academies choosing either horizontal year group tutoring or cross-age tutoring through vertical mentoring groups comprising three to four students from different year groups. Our tutor programme provides robust age-appropriate guidance and academic and pastoral monitoring. Students are encouraged to engage positively with each other and tutors evoke a strong team spirit. Tutor groups are named after different countries each linking to continents e.g. Africa, Europe, Asia etc. Tutor operates at the start of each day for 20 minutes. Each tutor (usually a teacher) delivers a comprehensive programme to support our Intrinsic Curriculum - which builds our inclusive, caring culture and ethos and our Enhancement Curriculum - which fosters personal development and social understanding complementing our Academic curriculum. The tutor programme promotes and monitors attendance, conduct and praise and encourages students to engage in our wider Elective curriculum enrichment opportunities such as after school activities, sport and performance activities and trips and visits etc. Tutors engage tutees in subject quizzing and focus the development of wider organisational, literacy and numeracy skills etc. Tutors will ensure that all students understand the Academy Conduct Expectations (ACE) and value and understand the culture of safety, responsibility and respect and the ethos of pride, praise and purpose. Assemblies are attended in tutor time so that they are age-specific.
Assembly Programme
Our academies enrich their curriculum provision with a comprehensive and inspirational assembly programme to support our students’ personal development and raise their awareness and appreciation of key issues, faiths, events and practices. Assemblies occur in tutor time in same age year groups to support age appropriate guidance and content and in some academies with vertical mentoring as cross age assemblies. Assemblies can be extended to create time to allow guest speakers and deliver external programmes for example FRANK Drug Awareness, Road Safety, E-safety etc. Assemblies focus habits of success, skills and qualities that support independent learning. Our assembly programme is an important part of our Intrinsic and Enhancement curriculum provision promoting the culture and ethos of our academies, supporting our students and fostering fundamental British Values, raise social, moral, spiritual and cultural awareness; promote personal, social, health, relationship and sex education. Assembly takes place as a mass gathering in the academy hall and more recently as virtual assemblies delivered into classrooms.
Commemoration, Celebration & Education Events
We believe it is important to recognise and acknowledge the wealth of local, national and international events and awareness days to raise our students’ knowledge and understanding and develop their appreciation of issues, culture and heritage etc. Our academies’ schedule their approach to ensuring this enhancement aspect of the curriculum raises students’ awareness and engagement with the issues of their world and appreciation of their heritage.
Random Acts of Kindness
Our inclusive curriculum promotes equity and care to ensure our education provision is both engaging and relatable whilst encouraging our students’ emotional learning. We believe our young people have the potential to change the world and kindness is an important act to enable this. Our academies encourage everyone to be kind, share knowledge and lead by example. Through our intrinsic curriculum we promote the international Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) movement encouraging all to be kind to each other, nominating each other for some spectacular Random Acts of Kindness. From holding doors open for each other to support provided in maths lessons our students worked extra hard to be especially nice to each other. We recognise and praise random acts of kindness and our RAK Trees evidence the kind acts of our students and staff to each other and within our community.
Enriching & Extending Learning
TTo complement our students’ academic study, we provide a wealth of support, guidance and engagement opportunities that enrich our students’ educational experience and support their learning. It is not always possible to find a quiet area at home to complete work and therefore extended learning is not simply viewed as an out of school activity. Any activity that broadens our students’ experience, knowledge and understanding will extend their learning be it home learning or learning beyond the classroom in the school setting. Our academies provide a wide range of extended learning opportunities including access to a variety of on-line learning programmes, intranet subject resources, small group catch up interventions, after school academic support sessions and well planned homework to enable students to extend and complement their learning.
To extend our students experience we provide a programme of trips, visits, events, commemorations and charity work. Each academy operates student engagement programmes including an excellent programme of elective after school enrichment activities. Academies provide a bespoke programme of sporting, performance, craft, social and academic opportunities. Students are also encouraged to engage in programmes such as Student Voice, Pledges, Sustainability or become Anti-bullying and Mental Wellbeing Ambassadors etc. There is a wealth of sporting, performance and academic competition engaging students at academy, local, Trust and national levels. Students’ efforts and participation both in and outside of school are validated and acknowledged through the strong praise culture fostered by our academies. We are currently developing our comprehensive ̨Íåswag Honours Programme to encourage and acknowledge our students participation in both our elective curriculum and activities beyond the classroom.
Remote Learning
Across our academies, we use Google Workspace including Google Classroom. This provides an online platform for our academies innovative online learning provision for their students. We have fully embraced this approach and enhanced our practice through the COVID-19 pandemic. Online subject provision is created to support academic and pastoral study and to keep our students connected and engaged in their learning. Online learning provision includes synchronous lessons (when required) quizzing and recall activities to reactivate prior learning, support materials and activities to introduce new information and practice. Subject support materials are located in online subject learning libraries to enable students to deepen their learning and assess their misconceptions etc. Feedback can also be directed through Google classroom. Academies provide, where necessary, access to prearranged online tutorials, lectures and synchronous live online lessons. Our online learning platform, when necessary, enables our academies to share praise and connect with their community sharing online art galleries, charity events, assemblies, tutor group sessions and access to guest speakers etc.
Student Voice
First and foremost, our academies are communities where all members have equal value and worth. We encourage our students to contribute actively in shaping the educational experience they and their fellow students receive. Any student in any classroom in any year, has a voice that should be heard and our Student Voice programme facilitates this in our academies.
Student voice is structured to reflect the British constitutional system and promote the fundamental British values of law, democracy and liberty. Every year all students engage in a democratic election process to elect a Prime Minister and Deputy Prime minister. Each tutor group is represented by a cabinet member in Student Voice. Student Voice cabinets act as satellite groups, each responsible for developing whole academy initiatives be it sustainability, charity, creative arts, anti-bullying and mental wellbeing ambassadors etc. Student Voice is supervised by a member of staff and led by their student Prime Minister supported by their Deputy Prime Minister and cabinet leads. Student Voice meets regularly and invites the Principal to attend. It is given a high profile within the academy.
Students remain at the heart of our Trust and Student Voice sits at the heart of our academies. Through student voice roles, young people take a part in the ongoing improvements in their academy be it environmental, charitable or focused on their learning.
Pledges
Our Pledges initiative encourages our students to value extra-curricular involvement within and outside of the academy. Through meeting the ten Pledges, that range from attending enrichment activities to organising fundraising events, students gain confidence and valuable life experiences that will help to prepare them for life beyond our academy. Pledges encourage our students to become actively involved in our wider school community and to realise that their experiences whilst at school stretch further than the classroom. By promoting independence and teamwork, students can apply new skills and improved confidence to all aspects of their lives. Whether it’s representing our academies on stage, on the field or on excursions, the Pledges encourage our students to get involved, make new friends and take pride in all they do.
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̨Íåswag Honours
We are widening our Pledges to develop our fantastic ̨Íåswag Honours Platform. Currently under design it is intended to to acknowledge our students’ commitment and participation in school life and their achievements and talents beyond the school gates. This programme will widen and build upon our current Pledges system.
Equality & Diversity
We embed equality and diversity in our curriculum provision and implementation by ensuring our climate for learning, curriculum planning and delivery, learning experiences and assessment practices proactively eliminate discrimination, promote equality of opportunity, and foster good relations in a manner that values, preserves and responds to diversity.
Our inclusive practice ensures teaching methods and assessments do not place students at a disadvantage. We ensure students are exposed to and are given the opportunity to expand their knowledge and understanding of many different cultures and identities in a manner appropriate to the subject being taught. Our curriculum planning provides content that covers multiple perspectives integrating themes of equality, diversity and cultural relativity into our subject and wider delivery. We enable learning experiences in which students are able to reflect on their own identities, biases, and backgrounds and how these impact on their learning and life experiences. When planning our curricula and teaching experiences we evaluate our delivery to be mindful of unconscious bias in content, delivery or assessment practices reflecting upon how this may influence learning and teaching.
Our inclusive culture promotes belonging and engagement establishing a learning environment in which all students can feel like they belong. Our teaching practices and curricula provide the opportunity for all students to reach their potential. We identify and plan to overcome barriers that prevent students from diverse backgrounds from learning aiming that no student is automatically disadvantaged. Our inclusive curriculum is designed to support our students’ access ensuring they all have the opportunity to be engaged and actively participate to learn well. We aim to empower students to take responsibility for their own, and each other’s, learning providing opportunities for them to act as partners in their learning experience.