SubjectsKey Skills

Our Curriculum Intent

Our Key Skills curriculum has been designed for Year 12 and 13 students to: 

• develop personally, socially, morally, spiritually, and culturally;  

• achieve level 2 in the functional skills of literacy and numeracy or GCSE as appropriate. 

• excel academically to the best of their ability;  

• receive the most aspirational careers information, advice, guidance, and experiences to prepare them for the next step on their academic journey to employment.  

Inclusivity is at the heart of our curriculum, enabling us to meet the specific learning needs of all our students.  This is deliberately planned into all learning stages with a rich knowledge and skills base for all. A flexible and adaptable approach to teaching and supporting each student (differentiation) ensures success.  

Our Key Skills curriculum has been personalised in response to the local career and training opportunities in areas such as retail, hospitality, social care and the voluntary sector.  

Enrichment of the curriculum in the Key Skills course includes opportunities for work experience within the timetabled week; personal skills development, the ASDAN Certificate of Personal Effectiveness, and Duke of Edinburgh Award. Students also benefit from running their own small business enterprise café.  

Implementation  

Students are grouped by ability from their GCSE qualifications and tutor assessment at the beginning of the course, in order to tailor the course to their needs. 

Our curriculum is divided into four Learning Cycles across the year, in line with the academy curriculum model. This approach is designed to divide learning into sections, while students are taught how to learn independently and revise material ready for regular formative assessment. Formative assessment and Nationally recognised exams take place throughout the year on demand. This enables students to build a progressive portfolio of exam certificates and give them confidence to progress to the next level and experience success.  

Improving a student’s literacy is a priority for our teaching. Students are taught to improve their skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking with confidence, fluency and understanding.  They are taught to give short presentations. Students are expected to read books and newspapers as part of their self-study and maintain a journal of what they have read.  

Numeracy is also a key priority of our teaching. Students revise their fundamental number skills and then learn how to apply these skills to everyday problems. The overall curriculum is used to provide opportunities for students to problem solve realistic numeric problems that they will encounter at work and at home. 

We have a classroom pedagogical approach, in line with the Academy Teaching Principles. We provide the opportunity for students to experience the positive effects of being responsible for their own learning and decision making within ‘Busy Beans Café which is our Real Work Environment (RWE).

Impact 

Our cycle assessments are recorded and used to identify progress in learning and areas which require further teaching, across whole class. or individual students. The flexibility of our curriculum plan, which has been running since 2019-20, means that students can progress at their own rate across the academic year when they are ready to be formally assessed and are not held back for an end of year assessment.  

We have found that early success in formative assessments at Entry Level encourage and give students confidence to attempt Levels 1 and 2 in Literacy and Numeracy later in the academic year.  

Our skill-based programme, combined with work experience and our small business enterprise helps students to develop the skills communications and confidence to progress.  

We prepare our students well for their next steps and progression into Further Education, Apprenticeships, further training or employment. The impact of raising academic standards and career aspirations has resulted in an increased number of Key Skills students gaining full time employment, progressing to further education or apprenticeships.  

The impact of our Academy Vision, Christian values and broad curriculum offer, results in an Academy family where students feel happy and equipped to express themselves as individuals, have confidence in celebrating their successes and support one another through the challenges they face or may face in the 21st century.