Expectations / Support for Everyone / Specialisms / Arrangements for admission (16+)

Our aim is to provide the highest quality teaching in a first rate learning environment. Our teachers are highly trained and use tried and tested techniques as well as more innovative methods to promote the most effective learning.

Learning in each subject is broken down into shorter term motivating modules lasting approximately six weeks each. Students and parents receive very regular feedback on how well students are doing and what they need to do to improve their work further. The progress of each student is individually tracked and monitored. Academy staff intervene if a student needs assistance and will involve parents appropriately.

The Academy is a specialist Enterprise Academy. This means that while offering a broad and balanced curriculum with a full range of subjects, there is a distinct emphasis on enterprise and an enterprising approach across the curriculum. This involves actively developing the skills of self presentation, risk taking, creativity problem solving, decision making, team working and interpersonal skills in a variety of contexts and with a range of adults from industry and the community in order to build self-esteem and confidence.

The Academy enjoys state-of-the-art ICT facilities and it is anticipated that the use of ICT in every aspect of learning, including learning outside school boundaries and school hours, will be a key feature of the curriculum.

Homework
Regular homework is vital in securing the very best results for our students. It consolidates work done in lessons, extends focused learning beyond the school day and encourages self discipline and the skills of independent study. The amount of homework increases as students’ progress through the Academy.

Citizenship and community cohesions
As required by educational law the Academy will provide education on all the above themes and subjects for all students. Full details of our Sex Education Policy and RE policy will be available on request. Parents have the right to withdraw their son or daughter from Sex Education and RE lessons, however, all of these topics form part of an integrated ME programme that helps the students gain knowledge, understanding and skills for adolescence and for life. The programme is an important part of the academy curriculum and has been developed with many parents and partners so that the context of how we deliver this is conducive to students moral spiritual and social development.

Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities
The academy welcomes applications from pupils with disabilities who will be subject only to the admissions criteria. External ramps and internal ramps and lifts ensure that students with disabilities have access to a wide range of educational opportunities offered by the Academy. The Academy’s accessibility plan meets the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

The Governing Body’s policy on special educational needs ensures that students with SEN are admitted on an equal basis with others in accordance with the admissions policy, except where admitting the student would be incompatible with the provision of efficient education for other children; and where no reasonable steps may be made to secure compatibility. In deciding whether a student’s inclusion would be incompatible with the efficient education of others, the Academy shall have regard to the relevant guidance issued by the Secretary of State to maintained schools.